‘ZOOTOPIA 2’ and the Overwhelming Joy of the Meaningful Family-Friendly Film

“It was so wonderful.” That was my three-year-old daughter’s verdict after watching Zootopia 2, which marked both her first press screening and her first time seeing a movie in a theater. And I have to agree. Even if you remove the film’s actual quality from the equation, the experience itself—sharing one of my greatest joys with my wide-eyed little girl as she gleefully demolished popcorn and a sour apple ICEE—was pure movie magic.

It helps, too, that Zootopia 2 is actually quite good: frequently funny, packed with clever gags and lively set pieces, and anchored by a rich thematic core. That’s a welcome break from the years of diminishing returns in the studio animation space, which has been in slow decline ever since Pixar lost its golden touch. This sequel marks a return to the kind of consistent quality we once expected from the House of Mouse, buoyed by being a multi-quadrant good hang. To summarize: it was so wonderful.

Co-directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard return to the bustling, climate-controlled cityscape of Zootopia, a metropolis where prey and predator coexist across meticulously designed ecosystems for every species under the sun. Well, almost every species. Some genuses aren’t allowed: namely, snakes.

When local hero cops Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) stumble onto a conspiracy involving a viper named Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan) and a pair of shady real estate moguls, the Lynxleys, they’re forced to confront their own reptilian prejudices and dig into the murky foundations of Zootopia’s supposed harmony.

This is another one of those kids’ films with adult themes cleverly Trojan-horsed in. The mammal-reptile divide doubles as a veiled metaphor for the lingering effects of generational racism and society’s myths about “dangerous breeds,” filtered through the lens of gentrification.

It’s got enough on its mind to keep adult viewers engaged without ever tipping into didactic territory. Even the right-leaning culture warriors might let this one slide, since subtlety has never really been their thing, and Bush’s screenplay isn’t overt enough to set off the usual alarm bells.

But none of that really measures up to the pure joy of just being present at my daughter’s inaugural cinematic experience. To me, going to the movies is like church. It’s one of the few places where the omnipresent distractions of real life aren’t constantly hedging in on you. Where you can silence all notifications and just be bowed over by the experience. When it’s good, nothing hits like it. Seeing her glowing reaction to Judy and Nick cracking wise, or confronting their ethical differences, or escaping into new corners of the Zootopia universe isn’t something I’ll soon forget. It was so wonderful.

CONCLUSION: Funny, heartwarming, and thematically potent, ‘Zootopia 2′ is one of the better animated movies of the decade—but more importantly, it marked a pivotal moviegoing experience for this critic: my daughter’s first time at the altar of the cinema.