Review: 'Zootopia 2' delivers more sharp humor and plot twists than the original, and flies the messages under the radar

It’s been nine years since Disney debuted “Zootopia,” a clever and good-hearted animated tale about a rabbit cop and a con-artist fox who team up, in a parable about fear, prejudice and acceptance that seemed well timed for the political winds of 2016.

With “Zootopia 2,” director-writer Jared Bush and co-director Byron Howard return with a sharper story that keeps the political messaging more subtle and instead wows with sharp humor and a smartly twisty plot.

Officer Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and her partner Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) are partners in the Zootopia Police Department — though the big bullies on the force, including Chief Bogo (voiced by Idris Elba), remain skeptical that the case they cracked to save the city wasn’t a fluke. Bogo is even less happy when Judy and Nick intervene in a customs bust, which ends in a chaotic car chase.

In the aftermath of that case, Judy thinks she’s found evidence that someone is smuggling a snake into Zootopia, a place where reptiles have been absent for a century. It was 100 years ago that a snake was believed to have killed a maid working for the city’s founder, Ebenezer Lynxley, credited as the inventor of the weather control system that allows so many different animals to live together peacefully in Zootopia.

As Judy digs deeper, with a reluctant Nick behind her, a bigger conspiracy unfolds involving the current Lynxley clan, who control the town and Mayor Winddancer (voiced by Patrick Warburton), a former action star horse. Soon, Judy and Nick are being framed for an attack on Chief Bogo, and are on the run with a refugee snake, Gary (voiced by Ke Huy Quan), the outcast member of the Lynxley family, Pawbert (voiced by Andy Samberg), and Nibbles Maplestick (voiced by Fortune Feimster), an overly eager beaver with a conspiracy podcast.

Bush’s script includes plot twists that would be welcome in any action thriller, as well as jokes that work for both the younger audience and the adults bringing them to the theater. (Just one example: When Judy and Nick go to the Zootopia jail, they encounter some of the criminals they helped put there, including the first movie’s main villain, the sheep Mayor Bellwether, voiced by Jenny Slate — who’s in a Plexiglass cell that evokes Hannibal Lecter’s room in “The Silence of the Lambs.”) 

There are some nice morals to this story, too — about being confident and trusting your partner, but also about using fear and propaganda to demonize outsiders — but in “Zootopia 2,” they sneak in under viewers’ defenses through the plentiful action and jokes. 

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‘Zootopia 2’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, November 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action/violence and rude humor. Running time: 108 minutes.