Disney animation feature film “Zootopia 2” has more animals and worlds to present, and I like it more. While it will still take some time for you to accept its rather shaky background premise, the film fills its animal fantasy world with an ample amount of humor and details to savor and appreciate, and you will soon enjoy another bumpy adventure of the contrasting duo at the center of the story.

They are a rabbit cop named Judy Hopps (voiced by Jennifer Goodwin) and a red fox named Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Batesman), and the opening part gives us a quick summary on how they saved their animal city and then began to work together in the police department of the city at the end of the previous film. Now they are eager to be assigned to another big case for proving themselves again, but their direct superior Chief Bogo (voiced by Idris Elba) is not so willing to allow that, so they come to cross the line a bit when their team is about to investigate a certain smuggling case. Not so surprisingly, their following reckless action causes a lot of headaches for their boss, and they are later instructed to attend a therapy course for problematic partnership.

Although they do not feel anything particularly wrong about their partnership at first, Judy and Nick soon find themselves conflicting with each other on something involved with that smuggling case. After noticing something fishy in the case, Judy is quite ready to delve more into that, and Nick, who is relatively more laid-back than his partner, is not particularly interested, but, what do you know, he soon gets involved in Judy’s unofficial investigation more, because, well, Judy is his partner after all. 

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that our two cop characters will discover that their case is much more serious than they expected at first. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you instead that Nick and Judy later find themselves targeted by a certain powerful animal family associated with the foundation of Zootopia. Not so surprisingly, this family turns out to have something important to cover up as much and long as possible, and Judy and Nick must find a way to save and then vindicate themselves.    

Luckily for them, Nick and Judy get two unlikely allies later in the story. One is Nibbles Maplestick (voiced by Fortune Feimster), a very eager beaver who is incidentally a podcast host and also can lead them to a certain hidden figure who may give some more information to help their ongoing investigation. The other one is Gary De’Snake (voiced by Ke Huy Quan), a pit viper who turns out to have a poignant personal motive behind his initially sneaky appearance.

As Judy and Nick bounce from one narrative point to another, the film expands further what has been established well in its Oscar-winning predecessor, and the result is often quite delightful to say the least. While there are a number of familiar places and figures shown in the previous film, there are also several different new regions and characters to watch and enjoy for their colorful visual qualities, and the film steadily engages us as deftly mixing old and new things together along the story. As a Hollywood blockbuster animation film, it surely serves us with a lot of action, but it does not lose any sense of fun and wonder at all even during its well-made action scenes, and you will also frequently be amused by small and big humorous details to observe. My personal favorite is a brief but undeniably hilarious homage to a certain film by Stanley Kubrick, and I must tell you that I had a really good chuckle even though I knew about that in advance.  

While Jennifer Goodwin brings a lot of pluck and spirit to her character, Jason Batesman slyly demonstrates again that he is born to play a fox as much as, say, George Clooney in Wes Anderon’s Oscar-nominated animation film “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009), and the success of the film surely depends a lot on their undeniable comic chemistry. Besides effortlessly clicking well with each other as before, Batesman and Goodwin also ably balance their characters’ relationship drama between comedy and drama, and we come to care more about what is being at stake for Judy and Nick even while being tickled a lot by their comic conflicts along the story.        

The film is also filled with a lot of colorful supporting voice cast members to be noticed here and there. While Key Huy Quan and Fortune Feimster are the most prominent ones in the bunch, Andy Shamberg, Patrick Warburton, Quinta Brunson, and Danny Trejo are also effective in their respective supporting roles, and David Strathairn, who has always a reliable character actor during last 45 years since his modest film acting debut in 1980, shows here that he can chew his scenes if that is really required. In case of a number of notable voice cast members from the previous film, Idris Elba, Shakira, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, and Jenny Slate easily slip into their respective parts, and Maurice LaMarche, a veteran voice actor who has been known well for his considerable contribution to a heap of animation films and TV series, has a little juicy fun again with his aging crime boss character.

Overall, “Zootopia 2”, which is directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, is more entertaining than its predecessor. To be frank with you, I was not that enthusiastic at first mainly because I mildly enjoyed its predecessor and then wrote a casual 3-star review, but the film surprises me with more excitement and imagination, and now I can assure you that it is one of the best animation films of this year.