By a number of accounts, Disney’s new anthropomorphic-animal detective story, “Zootopia,” is one of those animated features that struggled to find itself during production. Just check out the menagerie of writers listed in the credits — two for the finished script, plus another half dozen for helping them cobble together the plot. Not that some urgent behind-the-scenes rethinking by animators is a kiss of death, or even uncommon — “Tangled” was first conceived as a Rapunzel satire, and that turned out OK.
Disney’s latest doesn’t jell quite so successfully, but it’s an agreeable hodgepodge, at least, one that aims to be not just a breezy mystery, but also a race-and-ethnicity fable. And a salute to stick-to-itiveness. And an animated showcase for Jason Bateman’s wryness and Shakira’s hip wiggling. And a window onto a crazily varied (if undercooked) new ’toontown, with neighborhoods that run the ecological gamut. The movie is a zoo, all right — in terms of its conceptual and thematic logistics as much as anything.
Ginnifer Goodwin (“Once Upon a Time”) comes off like Amy Poehler lite as Judy Hopps, an irrepressible small-town bunny who dreams from the time she’s little of being a police officer. Know-your-place naysayers abound, from a bullying fox to Judy’s fretful, carrot-farming parents (Bonnie Hunt and Don Lake), but her determination gets her through the academy, and into the ranks of the Zootopia P.D.
If only she ranked higher. Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), the department’s bullheaded top cop, doesn’t see Judy as police material either, and he sticks her on meter-maid duty. She’s even more disillusioned when she’s conned by — childhood-scars alert! — Bateman’s Nick, a cynical street fox (and a character who was reportedly the original focus here). Then Judy latches onto a missing-animals case that forces her to ask for Nick’s help, and forces him to lend it. Before long, they’re confronting their respective hang-ups about being prejudicially disrespected as incapable and untrustworthy — a dumb bunny and a sly fox.
Judy and Nick’s unlikely-buddies routine is amusing, but their exploits and interplay occasionally neglect the youngest demographic. A “Breaking Bad” bit works on only one level, if that, and some of the more sardonic material plays less like Disney than live-action Jason Bateman. But we also get gags like sloths working at the DMV that are fun for all ages — silly for kids, entertainingly sly for grown-ups. If that’s a zoologically correct way of putting it.
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½
ZOOTOPIA
Directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Written by Jared Bush, Phil Johnston, and six others. Starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman. Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs, Jordan’s Furniture IMAX in Reading and Natick. 108 minutes. PG (some thematic elements, rude humor, and action).