Zootopia 2

I’d argue that Zootopia 2 isn’t quite as impactful or funny as the original, but the 2025 sequel is a bit bolder in unpacking its animal allegories and political commentary, so I am placing it just above its predecessor. As tragic as it is that Disney is becoming a sequel machine, the team does a good job at making its follow-ups feel like a natural, well-woven piece of a larger puzzle, rather than a vapid cash-in starring characters people love. Zootopia ends on a hopeful, idealistic note that Nick and Judy have fixed the rot within the city, and they can just go be cop buddies without a care in the world. Zootopia 2 picks up just a week later and shows that this was always a fundamentally flawed premise. These two are too different. Judy’s an endless optimist who is so myopically driven to prove herself that she puts others in harm’s way. Nick is a cynic beaten down by the hard life he’s lived, and those two things don’t mix when it comes to trying to make the world a better place, as Judy always says. Thankfully, Zootopia 2 is not Disney giving into a decade of fan fiction to make these two a couple, but their partnership has all the workings of a pairing getting past the honeymoon phase and doing the maintenance required to make any long-term connection work.

Those two have their own shit to figure out, but Zootopia 2’s greatest strength is in its use of its politically-charged setting to explore the police’s part in enacting violence against the lower class, and how they can be used as an extension of systemic oppression. The film reveals just how ingrained prejudice and corruption are in the city’s DNA, and its story of displacement and political espionage is far more willing to accept that Nick’s cynicism about it all isn’t unfounded. Sure, it’s not saying “ACAB” and Judy isn’t shouting to defund the police by the end, but Zootopia 2 is still trying to say something underneath the thick layer of copaganda.