crossaffliction's stories

Zootopia is the best reviewed movie of 2016 so far, according to review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. It has a 100% based on 92 reviews as this piece was written. The movie, which deals with a furry world as explicitly laid out in the original teaser trailer, is perhaps the single most anticipated movie in the history of the furry fandom. It seems the hype may not have been in vain.

Rotten Tomatoes's "critics' consensus" for the movie is as follows:

The brilliantly well-rounded Zootopia offers a thoughtful, inclusive message that's as rich and timely as its sumptuously state-of-the-art animation -- all while remaining fast and funny enough to keep younger viewers entertained.

Some have noted that Zootopia is on pace to become the single best reviewed movie in Rotten Tomatoes history. The current record holder is Toy Story 2, with 100% from 163 reviews. The linked article points out that, while it is likely the movie will eventually receive a "rotten" review, a 99% or 98% is likely, and that a negative review is likely to come about because the reviewer disagrees with the movie's message, rather than the actual quality of the movie.

You shall have to forgive me; this is not a very furry movie. It may not be a furry movie at all, but to truly come down one way or another, I'd have to spoil things. However, one does not often have the opportunity to review a movie endorsed by the Satanic Temple; in fact, this is the first opportunity any reviewer ever has had. If you're the kind of person who likes to take movie recommendations from the Satanic Temple, well, there you go. Stephen King liked it too.

So, why am I reviewing this movie for Flayrah (I mean, other than I want to, and I can)? Well, this is one of those horror movies where you can't know for sure if what you're seeing is real, or a vision, a dream, or a hallucination. Two small children assure us they talk to a goat; this goat is named Black Phillip. When not playing imaginary friend to all children (or is it the witch in the wood's familiar pretending to be playing imaginary friend to all children?), he enjoys Tweeting cute goat videos, vintage furry art, vague threats at the Pope and, of course, humblebrags. Not in the movie, though (that would be quite a twist), but as part of the bizarre viral marketing employed by cult distributor A24 (see also, Satanic Temple endorsement). Don't laugh, the goat has more followers than we do.

Oh, also there's a bunny. I should probably mention that.

The word that best describes the Kung Fu Panda film series, in my opinion, is "classy."

Which is surprising, because DreamWorks Animation was not known as a classy studio. The studio got its start with Shrek (a movie studio founder Jeffrey Katzenberg consider's DreamWorks' "North Star," whatever that means), which didn't introduce the fart joke to mainstream animation, but certainly played a big part in popularizing it. It's not a classy movie, is what I'm saying, and it has no pretensions otherwise. And so, for seven years, that was DreamWorks, where the world of animated movies was you were either Disney or Pixar, or you were, at best, the angry rejects who could only hope to stand out by virtue of crassness.

Enter Kung Fu Panda, a movie that features Jack Black as an overweight anthropomorphic panda with a nervous eating habit. The fart jokes should have written themselves, right? I went into that movie expecting a fun "romp," an innocuous time waster with a couple friends. Even as a furry, a DreamWorks animation movie, even one about anthropomorphic animals, meant it was, at best, going to be okay. Instead, it felt like a lightning strike; this was a real movie. It respected its characters, its setting, its story, its audience. And then, somehow, the sequel was even better.

So, anyway, Kung Fu Panda 3 is also pretty good. And also way classier than my headline, which contains the word fart. I guess you could describe that headline as "gassy." And this review now contains more fart jokes than the entire Kung Fu Panda trilogy. Isn't that funny?

This one's for Fred.

The Art of Zootopia by Jessica Julius is now available for pre-order from Amazon; it will be available March 1 (three days before the March 4 opening of the movie) for $36.00 US (before any applicable taxes, shipping, handling and whatnot) in hardcover. Amazon points out that the The Art of Kung Fu Panda 3 is frequently bought with The Art of Zootopia; together, they are $65.60 at Amazon.