Genre Adventure

Zootopia 2 (2025)

Item: Zootopia 2
Rating: 3.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★★★½ — Zootopia 2 (2025)

Here's the thing about sequels to beloved animated films: they almost never match the original, and the ones that come closest tend to do so by playing it safe. Zootopia (2016) was a genuine surprise, a film that used its animal-city premise to say something genuinely sharp about bias and systemic prejudice while wrapping it all in a cracking detective story. So where does its follow-up land? Solidly. Pleasantly. Competently. And frustratingly short of the bar set by its predecessor.

What Zootopia 2 gets right, it gets properly right. Judy and Nick remain a wonderful double act, their dynamic warm and lived-in, and the voice performances across the board are full of personality and comic timing. The detective plot is neatly structured, with real gags, genuine twists, and payoffs that actually land. It's the kind of film where you're consistently entertained, smiling regularly, and never checking your watch. That's not nothing. That's actually quite a lot.

The animation is, frankly, gorgeous. Every frame bursts with colour, texture, and movement. The world of Zootopia remains one of the richest and most densely detailed environments in modern animation, absolutely stuffed with sight gags and background jokes that reward attention. The cinematography keeps things lively and brisk, and the score does something clever, blending spy-jazz swagger with pop tracks in a way that suits the tone perfectly. Nothing here feels lazy or phoned-in. The craft is meticulous.

Where it stumbles is in the script. There's a tendency to over-explain, to lean on exposition when trust in the audience would serve better, and the callbacks to the original are occasionally forced in a way that feels like box-ticking rather than genuine affection. The film's take on prejudice, the thread that gave the first film its real bite, is warm and well-intentioned but noticeably simplified this time around. It touches the theme rather than wrestling with it. The edges have been smoothed off.

And that's really the whole film in a sentence: the edges have been smoothed off. There's nothing here that will catch you off guard, nothing that'll stick with you the way certain moments from the original did. It's a film that knows exactly what it is, delivers exactly that, and doesn't push an inch beyond it. If you saw Zootopia+ (2022) and felt it was charming but slight, this is a significant step up from that, but it hasn't quite recaptured the spark of that first film either.

For families, it's an easy, enthusiastic recommendation. Kids will love it, adults won't be bored, and the whole thing moves at a pace that keeps everyone engaged. The leads are likeable, the jokes land, and the world is a joy to spend time in. All of that genuinely counts. I just kept waiting for the moment where it surprised me, where it did something I didn't see coming or said something that made me sit up a bit straighter. That moment never quite arrived.

Three and a half stars.

Solid rather than spectacular, and that's fine. Not every sequel needs to be a revelation. Sometimes good is genuinely good enough, even if you can see the ceiling the whole time you're watching.

Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2025 | Watched: 2026-03-26

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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