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Reel Reviews: When animals rule the world

Taylor and Howe say, “Zootopia is more quality social engineering from Disney.”
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Officer Judy Hops (Ginnifer Goodwin) joins the police department

In a city of anthropomorphic animals, a fugitive con artist fox and a rookie bunny cop must work together to uncover a conspiracy.

We say, “Zootopia is more quality social engineering from Disney.”

HOWE: Hey Mr. Taylor, we have a special guest helping us out this week: Eight-year-old film buff Fenin is going to give us his thoughts on Zootopia. So Fenin, what did you think of it?

FENIN: I really liked the whole movie. It really made me laugh. My favourite character was the fox, Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman). He was so sly and funny.

HOWE: But what about the bunny?

FENIN: She is a good actress.

HOWE: Really?

FENIN: Ha ha.

HOWE: I must admit that I wasn’t really looking forward to this, maybe because I am looking forward to watching Life of Pets a little more. Zootopia surprised me, though. I found it very entertaining and in an animated movie that is sometimes a little difficult to always pull off. It has all the key parts: It pulls at the heartstrings, has lots of laughs and a good storyline.

TAYLOR: I enjoyed how the main character was a discriminated against bunny rabbit, who was the only bunny on the force (really, the only female on the force). I further liked how the mystery the police were trying to solve was why certain predatory animals were reverting to their savage past, after living in peace all these years (call it radicalism). Then, on top of the dichotomy created by “good” animals and “terrorist” animals stirred up a fear to control the population, using, as usual, corrupt politicians.

Zootopia is a film about people in the world today disguised as a film about animals. Kids won’t get all that, but they’ll remember it and understand it later.

They’ll also like it. I liked it, so did my wife.

FENIN: Oh Dad, don’t forget about the sloths.

HOWE: How could I? They were fantastic; probably the funniest part of the film.

– Fenin gives Zootopia 4 police officers out of 5.

– Howe gives it 4 train rides out of 5.

– Taylor gives it 4 all seeing eyes out of 5.

Reel Reviews with Brian Taylor and Peter Howe appears every Friday and Sunday in The Morning Star