Zootopia 2

In Zootopia 2, the vibrant animal metropolis faces its most bewildering upheaval yet when charismatic snake Gary De’Snake (voiced by Ke Huy Quan) slithers into town, sparking chaos and a trail of cryptic clues. Detectives Wilde and Hops dive into their trickiest case, navigating high-society galas, shadowy reptile enclaves, and long-buried secrets about Zootopia’s founding.

Zootopia 2 Review

The first Zootopia was an incredibly obnoxious leftist Shangri-La of progressive retardation, but it was also well done and fun despite its laughable, not-so-secret theme (I would argue that it was an unintentional parody). Zootopia 2 attempts to recapture the same energy and fun of the first with varying degrees of success.

                   

Sequels rarely equal and almost never surpass the quality of the original, often falling into one sequelitis trope or another. Zootopia 2 isn’t the exception. Its writers, rather than dreaming up a wholly new adventure that takes the heroes from the original in a new and organic direction that builds upon what has already been established, more or less rehash the same emotional territory from the first (the fox and the rabbit have significant differences that must be overcome to succeed). They also gently recycle the plot (one group of animals is targeted for destruction by an unexpected character to shape Zootopia into their vision of perfection).

The plot has enough cosmetic changes to carry the film, but the interpersonal conflict between its leading dynamic duo falls flat at every turn, never feeling earned or needed. Obviously, kids won’t care; the animation is detailed and beautiful, and the action set pieces, while devoid of much in the way of inspiration or originality, are well-crafted. The pacing isn’t quite as tight as the first, but that’s more a result of the disconnect of the emotional beats, so, again, kids likely won’t notice or mind. However, being so close to the original leaves little excitement for parents.

As per usual, Ke Huy Quan is delightful, his effusive effervescence energizing every scene, even if his character consistently felt tacked on. Likewise, Bateman and Goodwin continue to deliver a chemistry that belies the fact that they likely didn’t interact much when recording their voices. While the writers seem a little lost as to what to do with Bateman’s character, his easy comfort and natural comedic instincts pick up much of the slack.

Part of what made the first Zootopia so appealing was the city itself. The same writer/director duo responsible for bringing it to life as its own character expands upon it somewhat in this sequel, but the freshness has worn off a bit. It doesn’t over-rely on familiar areas to wow the audience, but the new locations that largely exist outside of the city aren’t as interesting, and it’s hard not to think that there was a lot more world that they could have explored within the city limits.

As a comedy, many of the first film’s beats took for granted that the audience was as insane as the writers, leaving the lion’s share of the guffaws to traditional children’s humor. This one doubles down on the slapstick and, with a far less focused point of view than the original, Zootopia 2’s sense of humor more or less stagnates at that level. Basically, children will laugh, and parents will occasionally smile.

In the end, Zootopia 2 is a competent but uninspired follow-up—polished, colorful, and energetic enough to entertain younger viewers, yet too derivative and emotionally hollow to offer much for anyone else. It revisits the original’s dynamics without deepening them, repeats its themes without sharpening them, and spreads its ambitions across a wider world without discovering anything truly new. The cast does what it can, the visuals do most of the heavy lifting, and the humor settles firmly into kid-friendly territory. What remains is a sequel content to echo rather than evolve, enjoyable in the moment but forgettable the second the lights come up.

PARENTAL NOTES

Public Intoxication

• One scene takes place at a posh party, where everyone is drinking unnamed fluids (but definitely alcohol) from glasses reserved almost exclusively for martinis, wine, and other adult beverages.
  • One character is portrayed as falling-down, blackout drunk.

Thout Shall Not

• It’s hard to say for certain, as his voice is muffled, but it sounded as though Jason Bateman’s Nick takes the Lord’s name in vain at least once, saying, “Oh, God” when he’s smacked in the face with some clothing.

I’m Not Touching You, So You Can’t Be Mad

• “What the pork,” is yelled once, and the joke is pretty obviously that it’s similar to “what the f.”

Redrum

• Murder is mentioned at least once.
• The rabbit jokingly threatens her neighbors with strangulation.

I Believe It’s Pronounced Ménage à Troi

• The beaver has a recurring joke in which she says, “Two’s company, but it takes a threesome to be sumpin’.” She means that she, the rabbit, and the fox can better accomplish their tasks together. Later, she says, “It takes a threesome to be sumpin’, but a foursome to get more done.” It might be innocent, but aside from in golf (which is definitely not being referenced), when’s the last time you heard threesome being used to mean something other than sex with three people?
  • I know that I don’t want my kids going around saying this.

WOKE REPORT

What They Get Right

• Unlike the first film, which was a ridiculous trans allegory that tried to argue that immutable characteristics such as being a carnivorous or herbivorous creature could be changed based on how strongly one’s case of the feelsies might be (remember the scene in which the protagonists told a fox that it could be an elephant if it really wanted to be), one of Zootopia 2’s two competeing main themes is that the differences that separate us aren’t all insurmountable and that most of us have a lot more in common with one another than entities like the media might make you believe, and that by trying to find common ground through calm and rational conversations rather than reactionism will produce a better society with shared core values and goals.
  • That’s a pretty major change in the right direction for Disney, and it’s why the Woke-O-Meter score isn’t more severe than some might believe is warranted.

A Munching Beaver

• Let’s just get it out of the way now. If you’ve been on X over the last couple of weeks, you’ve seen it said that Zootopia 2 features Disney’s first openly gay character in a major animated feature. Well, it’s not true.
  • First, 2016’s Zootopia briefly featured an openly gay couple who lived in the rabbit’s apartment building. In 2020’s Onward, there was a lesbian cyclops. 2022’s Strange World featured two gay children pining over one another all film long. Lightyear’s lesbian girl-boss was a major plot point. So on.
  • Second, while it’s true that the actress who voices the beaver (I’m sure that wasn’t an accident) is an openly gay lesbian activist, aside from maybe the fact that she exclusively wears overalls, there is no in story indication that the character is gay (I had to run to the bathroom for a handful of minutes in the middle of the film, so let me know if I missed anything).
• Two elderly male mountain goats share a brief scene with the film’s protagonists. Later on, we get a quick glimpse of a photograph of them kissing, hanging in the hallway of a closed hotel that used to cater exclusively to honeymooners.

Have Your Men Neutered

• It’s better balanced than in some other Disney films, but the ratio of incompetent, evil, and generally flawed characters leans far more toward the men.
  • Nick (the fox) is the only one out of the two main characters to suffer the various ignominies from the film’s plethora of physical gags: think pie in the face. He’s not portrayed as clutzy or as making boneheaded mistakes that lead to these embarrassing events. He’s just randomly in the wrong place at the wrong time repeatedly throughout the film, while she never once gets doused or hit, etc.
  • Zootopia’s founder (a male)
    Spoiler

    did not actually found Zootopia at all. Instead, he stole the idea for generating the various environments that make up the metropolis, allowing animals of all kinds to live together from a brilliant but trusting woman.
  • The male police chief still won’t listen to the rabbit, even when she presents clear physical evidence of wrongdoing.
  • Remember the ditzy mole gal from the first film? Now, she’s a brilliant and ruthless businesswoman and gangster who’s co-boss of her father’s criminal enterprise, leaving him more time to play with his granddaughter, a mouthy and disrespectful tyke who you’re supposed to like because she’s spoiled and awful.
    • None of these characters is in the film for very long.
• One of Zootopia 2’s main themes is the relationship conflict caused by the major character flaws of its two protagonists. The rabbit’s biggest flaw is simply that she tries too hard. The fox, on the other hand, is saddled with a familiar Hollywood-style “fix the man” arc: he starts emotionally distant and guarded, and the story insists he must open up, bare his feelings, and become fully emotionally accessible. His easy-going nature—taking things in stride, not telegraphing every thought—gets treated as a problem to be corrected. It feels less like organic character growth and more like Hollywood’s ongoing push to sand down traditionally masculine traits in favor of a more feminized emotional template.
  • In addition to its existence in the film, that it feels so unwarranted and grafted on accounts for most of our Woke-O-Meter score.
• He gently teases her with the recording of her saying that she’s just a “dumb bunny” from the first film. She then overreacts to that, causing the carrot-shaped recorder it’s on (something she gifts him at the film’s beginning) to fall and break, and the movie treats it as though it’s his fault. It’s a major emotional sticking point in the film.
• A male sheep is getting decoratively sheared so that his wool appears to be a muscular physique, but there’s an accident, and he ends up looking as though he’s wearing a skirt and a well-filled-out bra. It’s just a sight gag, meant to be funny, because a man dressed like a girl is ridiculous. However, at the film’s end, there’s a callback to it, in which it’s indicated that he is simply “different” in a way worthy of acceptance.
• Professional “partners” with troubled relationships is a running theme. In one of the film’s repeated group touchy-feely therapy sessions, we are shown a group that includes a butch female honeybadger and her weak and wimpy partner, who is a deer. She regularly physically abuses him for the audience’s amusement. Don’t get me wrong, it’s funny, but it’s also another strong female insert.

Colonizers and Indians

• The plot revolves around an evil rich man who forces indigenous creatures from their native homes to colonize the land in his (and eventually his family’s) attempt to acquire more power and wealth.