Zootopia 2 Review

Zootopia 2 Review 

Zootopia 2 is the Disney movie hitting theaters this Thanksgiving. I was able to see this movie last night at a preview screening. What did I think about the movie? Is it any good? Let’s talk about it!

The Good

For me, I found Zootopia 2 to be an absolute blast and kept up the charm and the magic of the original. I think that movie is so much fun and one of the best Disney animated movies of the last 15 years. That movie is so funny, so quotable, and so charming because of the characters. When it comes to Zootopia 2, the creative team behind this movie didn’t skip a beat. The story, the themes, the world, the jokes, and the characters are all just as good as just as memorable as the first film. I was a bit nervous going into this movie because I don’t feel like Disney’s track record with animation sequels is great. Moana 2 was one of the biggest disappointments, it’s so blah, bland, and doesn’t even feel like a movie. I know a lot of people praise Frozen II, I’ve never been crazy about it. I like Ralph Breaks the Internet more than most people but it’s still not great. I think Zootopia 2 is legitimately a great sequel. With this movie it feels like they planned out what they wanted to do and put more thought into it. This film is tracking to have a fantastic opening weekend and I hope it does because I hope it shows Disney that if they decide to keep on making sequels that they learn what audiences liked about this movie and continue down that path. 

The best individual aspect about the movie would be the humor. This is maybe the funniest movie I’ve seen in 2025 so far. I was laughing out loud from beginning to end, my audience was laughing and having a really good time. There’s of course very obvious and big jokes that get big laughs from the audience. But what surprised me about this movie was all of the sight gags that make you chuckle. Every single sign has some sort of animal pun in there. The first movie has some really solid references towards adult content like The Godfather and Breaking Bad. They’re references that kids aren’t going to understand and the parents are going to understand them and get a kick out of it. With this movie you get more of those jokes. There's two different ones that references classic horror movies, two of my favorite horror movies of all time. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about and you could see that the adults got the joke but the kids didn’t. The joke that got the biggest reaction out of my theater was a reference towards a Pixar movie. That is so clever and so simple but sometimes those are the best jokes. You also get more of the fun quirky side characters from the original and they all have jokes. The new characters introduced have jokes that land as well. 

Speaking of the new and the old characters, this film continues to shine with its great set of characters. Our two leads Judy and Nick are just as likeable and as charming as they were in the original. They have such a great dynamic where they’re very different people (or animals) but you know that they care and you see what they like and don’t like about the other. This movie puts them in a different context where the first film was following the basic buddy cop formula where you have to buy the numbers cop with the out of control character and them using both of their skills to help out in the investigation. This movie is about them learning to be partners and being able to work together. There’s a conflict between them at multiple points in the story but it’s because they do care about one another and that’s what puts them in conflict and it makes them more layered, interesting, and compelling characters. I thought that Nick was the standout character and the one given the most character arc. When you watch this movie and the original back to back you see Nick’s arc. You see that he’s a better person because of the adventure of the film. That’s when you have great character arcs is when the journey of the film is the journey they need to go on in order to change. There’s also a lot of new side characters in the movie, all of them are really fun characters and fill out the world nicely. Ke Huy Quan plays one of our main new characters in Gary. In the first film we had a character that was asking for help with the investigation but they weren’t really prominent in the movie. In this film, Gary is very prominent and helps our lead characters all along the way. 

Another thing I appreciate about the Zootopia franchise is its ability to communicate its themes and message through story. One problem I think many modern day movies face is trying to communicate its themes and ideas in a way that doesn’t make sense and just gets preachy. In the case of the Zootopia movies they don’t do that, they found a clever way through having animals as our characters. If you have a world of different animals all living together there will be some prejudice going on and debating whether or not they can be trusted. Both of these films explore those ideas through the story and the context of the world we’re visiting. I think this a film that is a great example of how storytelling can be used to communicate themes and ideas without getting preachy and lecturing the audience. What’s fascinating about this movie is that despite it being so fictional with a different species, the themes that it’s exploring feel so relevant and real in today’s society. I think some people need to hear this message and hopefully be a better person because of what the movie is trying to communicate.  

Finally, the film can have a really big heart at the center of it. It’s a movie that’s about finding family and your pack in two different circumstances. You have Gary trying to find his family after reptiles have been banned from Zootopia. Even the arc that Judy and Nick are on is about them finding family and their pack between the two of them. Because of that the film has a lot of heart and there’re several classic Disney emotional moments that hit all of the right beats. The way that the film concludes and the final resolution with the arcs I think is probably more emotionally satisfying then the original. In my opinion, this film has a bigger heart then the first film which already had a really big heart. 

The Bad

The big thing here is that the film is following pretty much the same structure as the original. As I mentioned earlier, but the film is also exploring all of the themes about prejudice and accepting other creatures. This film isn’t the freshest or the most original thing out there. Because of that, the film can be very predictable and has a lot of the same twists and turns that were in the original. When certain things happen it’s not the most shocking because you were able to put the pieces together very earlier on once they set certain things up. A formulaic sequel isn’t always a bad thing, Home Alone 2 is a formulaic sequel and I think that’s a great movie. But it does hold the movie back from being as good or better than the original. This movie does throw in some new ideas about Nick and Judy being on the run that changes up some of the dynamic of the original. But 80%-90% of the movie is very similar to what we saw in the original. 

The other thing here is the movie felt like it was required to have certain side characters from the original return but it didn’t work as well. Without spoiling anything, the way they have Chief Bogo in the mix I thought was a bit weird. In terms of the plot, it makes sense why he’d come back. But he disappears for the middle 45 minutes of the movie. They set up some jokes about him that I thought were going to be mentioned throughout the movie, that’s not the case. They have some of the other standout side characters return but I don’t think the bits with them are as strong and felt a bit out of place. The bits weren’t bad, the moment with Flash put a smile on my face but I wish they found a way to incorporate those bits a bit more naturally. 

Final Thoughts: Overall, Zootopia 2 was an absolute blast from start to finish. I really dug this movie and I think it’s one of Disney’s best movies in a while. It’s so funny, our characters continue to be so charming, and it’s a world that I love being back in. This is a perfect movie to take the entire family to this Thanksgiving, I think people are going to eat this movie up and have a blast. 

The Score: 8.8/10 (B+)