"Zootopia" Review

With its 55th animated feature, Walt Disney Animation Studios serves up yet another home run in the form of Zootopia - a lush, colorful feature that may be too dense for kids. Older teens and adults should eat up the film's deep conspiracy plot and its mature, but never dirty, sense of humor. Keen-eyed fans of The Godfather, Breaking Bad, and past Disney animated hits will find plenty to chuckle about.

The story starts with Judy Hopps (Once Upon A Time's Ginnifer Goodwin), a bunny from a small country town with dreams of being a police officer in the big city of Zootopia. After being told to temper her expectations for the real world, Judy leaves the haters behind and heads to the police academy. Her first day on the job in Zootopia leads her to an encounter with a sly fox named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). After a rough first day, the city-slick Nick and greenhorn Judy become unlikely partners when Judy takes on a missing persons case in a last-ditch effort to save her career. As they chase down leads all over town, a more sinister plot comes to light.

If anything bad can be said about the film, it's that things fall into place too conveniently on more than one occasion for our heroes. I won't list examples in fear of giving too much away, but leads and hunches are often resolved with little effort from the story or the characters. This diminishes the stakes a bit and undermines some of the most interesting aspects of (especially) Judy's character. It's odd that the bunny who doesn't have a clue suddenly seems to have an answer for everything. When she doesn't, her conveniently paired fox friend does.

It's easy to see past these flaws, however, because of how incredible everything else is. The animation is gorgeous; every animal, building, article of clothing and drop of water is realized with vivid detail. And believe it or not, everything looks even better in 3-D.

The voice acting is also quite strong. Bateman shines as Nick, a perfect match for the actor's smart comedic sensibilities. Goodwin is perpetually engaging as Judy. The two lead an impeccable supporting cast including Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Tommy Chong and Shakira among others.

Lastly, Disney delivers another ballsy message in the form of a colorful kid's movie. The central conflict of Zootopia stems from deep-seeded prejudice. Predators and prey co-habitate in Zootopia despite their biology, and this creates a fascinating, sometimes complicated, dynamic for both the characters and the world they exist in. It's a message that rings all too truly for the real world today, but the deeper issues at hand for us humans have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Until hate and prejudice are erased from the face of the earth, films like Zootopia will continue to timelessly inform as well as entertain.

A-

"Hail, Caesar!" Review

At one point in the Coen Brothers' new film, studio production chief Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) gathers a boardroom full of clergymen and heralds the fictional Hail, Caesar! as "a prestige picture featuring one of the biggest stars in the world." The Coen's Hail, Caesar!, despite also featuring one of the biggest stars in the world - George Clooney, falls far short of being a "prestige picture" in its own right. The film really amounts to nothing more than incomplete character arcs and a series of only marginally funny excuses to feature stars like Scarlett Johansson, Jonah Hill, and Frances McDormand.

The story follows Mannix as he juggles production duties on several films shooting on his Capitol Pictures backlot. When the star of his biggest blockbuster is kidnapped, Mannix tries to contain the situation by quietly enlisting the help of some of the studio's other contracted actors to find out what happened.

The marketing made this out to be a classic Coen caper more in line with The Big Lebowski than middle-of-the-road fare like Burn After Reading. Though Hail, Caesar! features many classic hallmarks of the Coens' work, including strong neo-noir elements and undertones of political paranoia, the simple narrative becomes lost in the tangled web it tries to weave. As a result, the whole endeavor ends up feeling loosely plotted and unfocused. An unnecessary subplot with Mannix fielding a job offer from Boeing is meant to add another dimension to the story (the threat of obsolescence) but instead leads the film to meander in more places than it needs to.

All the same, Hail, Caesar! taught me a valuable lesson that I should've learned by now - when it comes to the Coen Brothers, throw all expectations and pretensions out the window. I would like to see the film at least one more time to pick up any nuances I may have missed.

 For all its narrative flaws, Hail, Caesar! features lush production design that almost perfectly captures the spirit of "Old Hollywood." Film buffs will also love the allusions to the works and personas of industry legends such as William Wyler, Cecil B. DeMille, Gene Kelly, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Esther Williams.

C+