Zootopia

An affable yet forgettable Disney effort, Zootopia follows rookie bunny cop Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) as she’s forced to team up with a con-artist fox (Jason Bateman’s Nick Wilde) to uncover a massive conspiracy. It’s perhaps not surprising to note that Zootopia boasts an absolutely jaw-dropping visual sensibility, as filmmakers Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush have suffused the movie’s anthropomorphic-animal landscape with a bright, vibrant feel that’s perpetuated by, at the outset, a blistering pace and surfeit of engrossing sequences (including, in terms of the latter, an absolutely captivating chase through a tiny rodent town and a vist to a DMV office run entirely by slow-as-molasses sloths). The impressively energetic and creative vibe persists right up until around the movie’s midsection, with Zootopia, past that point, concerning itself with Judy and Nick’s investigation to an extent that eventually becomes oppressive and repetitive – with the progressively less-than-involving vibe ensuring that the third act simply doesn’t fare all that well. (It doesn’t help, certainly, that the movie runs an overlong 108 minutes.) It’s this pervasively erratic atmosphere that confirms Zootopia‘s place as a decidedly middle-of-the-road Disney effort, although, to be fair, it’s worth noting that the movie ultimately makes a more positive impact than some of Pixar’s more recent endeavors.

**1/2 out of ****