Movie review: Delightful ‘Zootopia’ entertaining for adults, kids

“Zootopia” delights, in ways big and small.

Big: The vibrantly colorful and incredibly detailed landscapes that make up the animals-only world in this charming new animated movie from Disney. Zootopia is the name of a bustling city of spires and monorails and palm trees and creature-crowded thoroughfares. The vistas are enchanting, a feeling that’s reflected in the lavender-iris eyes of the picture’s central character, a diminutive country bunny named Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) as she gazes about in rapt wonder upon her arrival from her home in the sticks.

Small: Seemingly inconsequential little scenes — a funny faux bloodletting in a kiddie talent show at the opening; a wee creature saved from being squashed by a giant runaway doughnut — that foreshadow large and consequential plot twists later on.

Judy has come to town to become a cop, the first of her kind to make the grade in that demanding profession. She encounters prejudice. “I’m not just some token bunny,” she tells her disapproving chief, a towering Cape buffalo voiced with towering authority by Idris Elba.

She finds herself caught up in a case of mysterious disappearances, trying to track down the vanished critters, which bugs her boss to no end. She is, after all, only a meter maid and seemingly way out of her depth.

Her reluctant — make that very reluctant — unofficial partner in all this is a cynical con-artist fox named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman, sly mockery dripping from every word). He’s arch and worldly. She’s upbeat and indefatigable. Her motto: “I don’t know when to quit.”

Oil and water. The ingredients of a funny, appealing partnership.

More delights: The picture is packed with fully dimensional characterizations, from the largest roles to the smallest, in this world where virtually all creatures, regardless of species, live together in harmony. A doughnut-loving chubby cheetah desk cop (Nate Torrence) is a bundle of ebullience and later, affecting poignancy. A fluffy ball-of-wool deputy mayor character (Jenny Slate) is a bubbly seemingly somewhat scatterbrained sheep functionary who is the butt of one of the best jokes in the movie: “Do you think when she goes to sleep she counts herself?” wonders a grinning Nick.

As to jokes, the picture is overflowing with them. Some are groaners: In the squad room, the chief intones, “We need to acknowledge the elephant in the room. (Pause) Francine, happy birthday,” to the delight of a — you guessed it — elephant officer.

Others are, well, there’s a long segment set in a DMV office where all the staff are extremely slow-moving sloths that had a screening audience howling.

But there’s seriousness here also. Writers-directors Byron Howard (“Tangled”), Rich Moore (“Wreck-It Ralph”) and Jared Bush put a sensitive focus on Judy’s struggles to overcome the low expectations of her boss, and her own parents, that a bunny can’t rise and thrive in the big complicated world out there.

Her mom: “It’s great to have dreams.” Her dad: “As long as you don’t believe in them too much.”

Prejudice is addressed by a plot element in which predator species become targets of discrimination when a crime wave breaks out and the nonpredator species view them with suspicion and fear.

Full of unexpected plot twists, and combining a surprisingly sophisticated conspiracy subplot (who abducted the missing animals?) with insightful character studies, energetic pacing and even a very funny riff on “The Godfather,” “Zootopia” has plenty to appeal to kids and adults.

An arena show musical sequence featuring pop star Shakira (as a sexy gazelle) ends the picture on a self-congratulatory note. Its self-congratulations are earned.

“Zootopia”: delightful in every way.

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 9:45 PM with the headline "Movie review: Delightful ‘Zootopia’ entertaining for adults, kids."