RIOTUS

Almost a decade later, Zootopia 2 is opening the city gates again. Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is still the ever-hopeful bunny cop, and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) brings his signature dry wit as her fox partner in solving whatever comes their way. Familiar faces like Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), Gazelle (Shakira), and Clawhauser (Nate Torrence) are back, but the city of Zootopia also has new arrivals. Like Mayor Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), a Clydesdale and former action-movie hero, but most notably Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan), a pit viper—cleverly reminiscent of Kaa from The Jungle Book—whose agenda stirs up the city’s carefully constructed power balance. An issue paralleled in the personal lives of our heroes, ‘cause Chief Bogo boots them into the Partners in Crisis counseling program led by the cutest quokka therapist, Dr. Fuzzby (Quinta Brunson). But while the Fox and Bunny are in serious need of couples therapy, the city has some wounds that need healing two. Yup, I got puns. So does the first act of Zootopia 2—way too many puns, a truly beastly number of puns. Puns running amok. 

But when the story kicks in, it kicks harder than a zebra. Or The Zebros (pronounced zee-bros, Roman Reigns and CM Punk). We travel into new neighborhoods, hidden histories, and espionage. All of it boosted by a conspiracy podcaster, the bonkers but adorable Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster), and the bumbling but charming Pawbert Lynxley (Andy Samberg), a lynx scion of one of Zootopia’s most prestigious families, whose nerdy-styling masks a quest with loyalty at its heart. 

In the metropolis of Zootopia, Disney turned a buddy-cop comedy into a vibrant meditation on bias, dreams deferred, and the wild hope of coexistence—delivering giggles just as deftly as lessons in civil liberties. It’s a concept so sharp and resonant that it paved the way for BEASTARS, a manga-turned-anime that prowls the same thematic jungles, but does it as darkly as Zootopia is delightful. You know a story is popping when its descendants can be themselves but hit just as hard. What makes Zootopia a game-changer is how it holds society’s face to a mirror, compelling us to see ourselves in every stripe, scale, and claw, and reminding us that the wildest changes begin when we honor those things but forge bonds beyond them. It’s about togetherness based on the truth underneath. So when I went into the theater, I had to wonder if the sequel would live up to the legacy.

This time around: Beneath the surface of those utopian streets lies a web of intrigue that runs straight to the heart of Zootopia’s origins. When Judy finds a piece of snakeskin shed at a crime scene, and later crosses paths with the family joke, Pawbert, at the Zootennial Gala, she finds herself drawn into a mystery older than the city. As Judy and Nick peel back the layers of the founding myths, they come face-to-face with a conspiracy that could shatter everything we thought we knew about Zootopia. With the fate of old friends, entire genuses, and new allies on the line, our favorite bunny-and-fox duo is pushed to the edge, risking both their jobs and their relationship.

After a rough start that had me rolling more eyes than a chameleon (seriously, why so many animal x human puns?), Zootopia 2 finds the heart of the matter in the same social parallels and dismantling of prejudices that made the first one so meaningful. Act 1 is rough, but once Zoo2 sheds the need to constantly remind us we’re in an anthropomorphic world that is actually us, this sequel pops. You already know the performances and animation are peak. But when the writing burrows into what it means to belong, while breaking the same old fossils society tends to trap us in, Zootopia 2 reclaims the title: King of the Beasts. Even wilder (more puns) is how this movie not only speaks to gentrification and the villainization of the other, but it also aligns with the current demonization of immigrant populations. I don’t know if the filmmakers meant to do that, but if so, bravo, brava, bravissimo. On the strength of its sensitivities, Zootopia 2 is applause-worthy on multiple levels.

As Judy and Nick go rogue to uncover secrets about Zootopia’s founding families and why the reptiles who formerly lived there were exiled, they test their partnership and who gets to write history. The bunny-and-fox cops leave no doubts, this udderly human and hilarious harpooning of societal ills is the G.O.A.T. of 21st-century fables. My tail is already wagging for Zootopia 3.