Since its official release on Nov. 26, 2025, Disney’s animated movie Zootopia 2 has broadcasted to movie watchers globally. As the sequel to one of the most widely beloved animated films, Zootopia 2 faced high expectations, raising the question of whether it meets the standard set by its predecessor.
The film starts with a scene of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps working together on a new case that the Zootopia Police Department assigned to them. Their mission ends in chaos, which threatens their partnership status. Along with that, Judy also finds pieces of unusual evidence at multiple crime scenes, which leads the two on another challenging adventure. The mission further reveals Zootopia’s shady founding stories and differences in core values between her and Nick. This mission, which is the main portion of the film, deals with themes such as colonialism, gentrification and exploitation. These themes add substantially to the depth of the film, but there were also many less laudable aspects.
First, the sheer amount of jokes and references made to the previous film were overwhelming and sometimes came across as an attempt to “reheat old nachos.” While they were fun to point out at first, they quickly became less entertaining and repetitive. Second, the amount of action and high-energy chasing scenes were overstimulating. When these scenes first appeared on screen, they were pleasantly surprising and created engagement and excitement among viewers. However, as these high-energy action scenes reappeared repetitively with not much break between them, the plot became less emotionally impactful and lacked tension. With the lack of genuine suspense, these action scenes easily came across as corny, even if some of them were meant to be more serious than humorous. For instance, the tension surrounding the “twist” at the end felt more forced, making it less memorable and iconic than it could have been. In contrast, in the first film Zootopia, the backstories and plot twists were slowly revealed to the audience through scenes that varied pacing and involved different emotional energies, which is a major aspect its sequel lacked.
Although the themes explored in Zootopia 2 can be connected to relevant real-world issues similar to the themes in the first film, the relative lack of nuance in its execution make the movie less universally appealing than Zootopia 1. Overall, Zootopia 2 is a movie reserved for those who enjoy faster pacing, exaggerated action scenes and endless quips.
