“Zootopia 2” - I’m a s-s-s-snake.

Here’s my biggest issue with the world in Zootopia. If all of the animals have evolved higher intelligence and become anthropomorphized, why are fish still treated like regular fish? And I don’t mean like pet fish. They are literally still food for the now enlightened other animals. We see fish being chopped up and devoured by denizens of Zootopia. At least in the first Zootopia, this could be explained by saying it was just the mammals that evolved. But the sequel specifically centers on the plight of reptiles, snakes in particular, who are decidedly not mammals. You get it now; the fish thing seems wrong. But this isn’t about the fish.

After teaming up to save the city with Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde is made an official police officer and partnered up with Judy. Eager to prove their worth, Judy and Nick go undercover to bust a corrupt customs officer. Things don’t go as planned and a high-speed chase ends with a whole lot of damage done to the city. As a consequence, Nick and Judy are ordered to go to therapy for incompatible pairings. If that last bit sounds familiar it’s because that’s what the first movie was about as well - if different species can live and work together.

On top of that, this is also a typical buddy cop movie where two very different styles of cops are partnered up. I ran through a bunch of examples of movies and TV shows in my head and the closest parallel is Amy and Jake in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Like Amy, Judy is the straight-laced, always studying detective trying to prove her worth and Nick, like Jake, is the laid back, fast talker always relying on his instincts. When Zootopia 3 comes out featuring Judy and Nick dating or married or pregnant with a fox-rabbit mutant hybrid baby, just remember that ‘fobbit’ and ‘rabbox’ are equally funny words for that baby.

Anyway, during the botched bust, Judy finds a piece of snakeskin in one of the vehicles. She starts investigating because no reptiles have been spotted in Zootopia in one hundred years. That was when a pit viper was accused of killing a turtle/maid of the lynx (Ebenezer) that invented the weather walls and founded the modern Zootopia. You read that right - a snake killed a turtle so they banned all reptiles from Zootopia. No, it doesn’t make any sense that it’s all reptiles. Just like it doesn’t make sense that fish are just food.

At least, the reptile thing doesn’t make sense until much, much later in the movie. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Zootopia is celebrating its hundredth anniversary and the Lynxleys - the descendants of Ebenezer - are throwing a big party to celebrate, including displaying Ebenezer’s journal containing the walls’ designs. Judy suspects that a snake is going to steal the journal, so she convinces Nick to do another undercover mission, this time to protect the journal and prove to the chief (Bogo) that there is a snake in Zootopia.

Unfortunately, things go wrong again, but this time Nick and Judy are accused of helping the snake (Gary) steal the journal. The rest of the film unfolds exactly like every movie where the hero is falsely accused. They go on the run, try to redeem themself by uncovering the villain’s plot and exposing it, all while evading capture or death from the villains. Even though we’ve seen this story a thousand times, it’s still fun because Zootopia is filled with talking animals behaving in ways that satirize humans while still making fun of the animals. Look no further than Flash, the sloth. Plus, there are more Easter eggs than you can catch in a single viewing.

I also enjoyed the plethora of new characters, as well as exploring a new area of Zootopia called the Marsh Market. Fashioned as a riff on the bayou, it’s filled with a bunch of aquatic mammals living out almost every swamp people stereotype you can think of. I got a particular kick out of a quick gag featuring a touchy sea lion and another featuring the result of an underwater wake on some diners caused by a chase passing by. It’s the attention to those little details that really endear me to films like this.

As much as enjoyed the film, I was a little disappointed that it fell into the sequel trap of forcing characters to relearn a lesson they already learned in the first movie. And a little disappointed that it warmed over a couple of very tired relationship cliches (the misunderstanding that leads to a breakup, and the declaration that “I didn’t do it for myself or for them, I did it for you”). I also found it weirdly lazy that certain characters got great surnames like Hopps (for a rabbit) and Winddancer (for a horse), yet Gary’s surname is De’Snake and the lynxes are surnamed Lynxley. And don’t even get me started on the sheer number of contrivances used to further the plot.

But those are just minor flaws that don’t significantly impact the entertainment factor of the film. All in all, it was a solid movie with a good social message (one that is exceptionally relevant in the year 2025). While it might not hit quite as well with some (my wife and son were a little cooler on it than me), it won’t leave anybody fuming when they leave the theater. Except maybe fish lovers.

Rating: Ask for three dollars back and look forward to seeing a fobbit/rabbox in the next film.

“Nightmare Alley” - Cirque du noir.

When you watch films by certain directors, you come to expect certain things. If you watch Quentin Tarantino, you expect the movie to explode into a curse-filled bloodbath. If you watch Roland Emmerich, you know the world is ending somehow. If you watch M. Night Shyamalan, you’re know you’re getting a twist and probably spending two hours of life your life that you’ll never get back. Then, there’s Guillermo del Toro - with him, you expect creatures or something supernatural. And with the title Nightmare Alley, this film has to be stuffed full of creatures that will haunt your dreams, right?

(SPOILER ALERT - Can you guess where this is going?)

Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) has issues. It’s the middle of the Great Depression, he’s just dragged a body into a hole in the floor of a house and set it on fire, and he’s dressed like Indiana Jones. This last one is more an issue for the audience than for Stan because it is the first time we see Stan in full and immediately suggests Stan is a hero about to tame some lions. Spoiler - neither of those things happens.

After Stan finishes smoking a cigarette, he makes his way to a carnival that is nine parts freak show and one part geek show. What is a geek you ask? Good question. Clem Hoately (Willem Dafoe), the carnival talker, will go into great detail explaining how a geek is actually made, but the short answer is a guy they’ve tortured to the point that he will bite the head off a chicken. This is what passes for entertainment in 1939 and whether or not customers believe the geek is a real chicken-vampire (or some other supernatural creature) is up for debate. Just kidding...they absolutely believe it.

In fact, the customers believe everything they see at the carnival despite everything at the carnival being a barely disguised con. There are mentalists Pete (David Strathairn) and Zeena (Toni Collette) convincing people they can read minds, there is big strongman Bruno (Ron Perlman) and little-strongman Brofo (Linden Proco) convincing people they can lift heavy stuff, there is a snake man and a bearded woman, there are games that clearly cannot be won, and there is even Molly (Rooney Mara) convincing people she can withstand being electrocuted by touching two Tesla balls. What catches the eye of Stan are Molly and all of the gullible idiots forking over what little money they have to be entertained. ‘Merica baby!

For the first few minutes of the film, Stan literally doesn’t speak a word. He wanders around the carnival when he first arrives, happens into the geek tent, leaves the tent before paying the chicken-head surcharge, is confronted by Bruno, Brofo, and Clem about what he’s doing there, is offered a job for the day, then offered a job staying on as a maintenance man. Eventually, Stan starts asking questions and learning more about the various carnies, including the geek (from Clem). At this point, we get the one instance of the entire film in which Stan is presented as worthy of sympathy - he offers the geek a cigarette. More on this in a minute.

When looking for a more civilized place for a bath, Stan goes into Zeena’s house where she is offering baths for a dime. Here he is introduced to mentalism and Pete’s debilitating drinking habit. Stan soon finds himself as an assistant to Zeema during her performances and convinces Pete to teach him their original act and how to cold-read people when the primary method (verbal cues from an assistant) is compromised. Everything we’ve seen up to this point is character building and setup for the second and third acts. More on this in a minute.

The final piece of this first act is Molly. Stan is clearly smitten with her and Molly is just a happy-go-lucky, innocent girl floating around the carnival with a dimpled smile on her face, occasionally letting electricity flow through her body. Stan woos her and convinces her to marry him, move to a big city, and become his assistant in a mentalist act.

This first act is exceptionally well done. It establishes the characters, develops an extremely interesting setting, and there are little details that seem to promise us that something supernatural is going to happen soon. It’s the kind of scene that should end with “if you liked that, you’re going to love what happens next.” Instead, it ends with “two years later in Buffalo.”

You know all those interesting characters at the carnival? Forget all them because they vanish from the film. You know the carnival? Not going back there again. You know how Stan seems kind of sympathetic, but definitely mysterious, and who did Stan set on fire at the beginning of the film and why? Well, he’s neither of those things and that person he burned doesn’t matter to the plot. That first act even featured an ominous warning to Stan from Pete not to believe his own con. Naturally, we expect this to happen, but not only does it not happen, the movie goes out of its way to make sure Stan reminds us time after time that it’s all a con. Worst of all, there’s no creature. There’s nothing supernatural.

The latter half of the film is essentially a completely new story. One night during their act, Stan is challenged by Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and Stan pulls off a cold-read to thwart her attempts to expose him as a fraud. He finds out she is a psychologist and that she has information on some very wealthy people (including characters played by Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins). Stan hatches a plan to con these people by tricking them into thinking he can talk to dead people. The film completely turns the audience against Stan at this point, but forgets to turn the audience for anyone else.

And that is the crux of the problem with this film. Del Toro is so busy trying to subvert our expectations that he forgets to write a compelling story or give us someone to root for. Stan only has that one moment early in the film, but that is quickly overshadowed by other deeds. Molly never gains any depth as a character and remains little more than a set piece to Stan and Del Toro. The carnies are literally abandoned, showing up briefly once more just to say hi (wish I was being sarcastic there). And all of the people we meet post-carnival are terrible people. And none of the early things said or done come back to complete the story. It’s almost like Del Toro and co-writer Kim Morgan each wrote half the movie, but didn’t tell each other what they wrote.

In the end, Nightmare Alley is hollow (as one person put it), not something I’d watch again (as another person put it), and an unfulfilled promise of some supernatural creatures, dammit (as I put it)! It is a very beautiful movie for those of you who like noir, Cate Blanchett and Bradley Cooper are really good, and, if you want to feel really good about yourself, you should be able to predict how the movie ends very early in the film (you won’t find many movies that telegraph an ending so blatantly as this one). But expectations are important and this film should have been much more carnival and much less Buffalo.

Rating: Ask for half your money back and where Del Toro is hiding the creatures.