Genre Animation

Zootopia+ (2022)

Item: Zootopia+
Rating: 2.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★★½ — Zootopia+ (2022)

There's a specific kind of contentment that comes from a comfortable side dish. You're glad it's on the plate. You eat it without complaint. And the moment dinner's done, you've completely forgotten it was there. That, in a nutshell, is Zootopia+.

This Disney+ collection of shorts drops back into the world of Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, and the wider menagerie of anthropomorphic city-dwellers that made the original film such a treat. The idea is sensible enough: bridge the gap between the first film and its sequel by spending a bit more time with the characters fans already love, expanding the lore in bite-sized chunks rather than committing to a full feature. On paper, that sounds like a reasonable deal. In practice, it's a lot more modest than you might hope.

The animation is sharp, as you'd expect from Disney. The voice cast brings back its charm. And every now and then, there's a flash of the franchise's trademark wit, the kind of knowing, layered gag that made Zootopia so enjoyable for adults as well as kids. The shorts focusing on secondary characters work best. Clawhauser gets a moment or two that genuinely land, and revisiting the sloths at the DMV produces a few smiles. When the series leans into its ensemble, it remembers what made the world worth visiting in the first place.

But "decent" is the operative word throughout, and decent is about as far as it goes. None of these shorts truly distinguishes itself. There's no standout entry you'd want to revisit on its own merits, no bold experiment with tone or structure, no moment where the format is used to do something the feature film couldn't. They feel less like fully realised stories and more like deleted scenes that someone has padded out to six minutes and given a proper polish. The craft is there. The ambition isn't.

That's the frustrating thing, because the anthology format genuinely offers opportunities. You could take risks with a short that would be impossible to sustain across a feature. You could give a minor character an unexpected depth, or play with genre, or just swing for something weird and memorable. Zootopia+ doesn't really swing for anything. It coasts, pleasantly, on goodwill earned by better work.

As a companion piece for fans who can't wait to spend more time in this world, ahead of Zootopia 2, it's harmless enough. If you love these characters, you'll enjoy seeing them again, even if none of the stories give them anything especially interesting to do. But as standalone entertainment? It's forgettable. Watchable on a quiet Sunday afternoon, sure, but not something you'd press on a friend or think back on a week later.

Two and a half stars. Sometimes "good enough" really is exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. Zootopia+ is perfectly adequate, and perfectly adequate is all it ever quite manages to be.

Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-03-29

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
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

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

Zootopia+ (2022)

Read more

American Beauty (1999)

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

The Babadook (2014)

The Peanuts Movie (2015)

The films worth your time, once a week.