Zootropolis 2 review – just-about-passable family comedy sequel might as well be AI generated

25 novembre 2025 à 18:00

Follow-up to 2016 animation about talking animals living in a utopia is a soulless film-by-numbers affair filled with corporately approved jokes

Another day, another supremely competent, passably-but-not-overwhelmingly funny digitally animated family comedy featuring talking animals. It’s not AI, but it might as well be. This is Zootropolis 2, which is named Zootopia 2 on its home turf in the US. (Is the reference to lefty ideas such as “utopia” too dangerous for the all-important foreign territories?) If this is the second in what promises to be a continuing series, perhaps Z3 will be cautiously hailed as a return to the franchise’s “dark” roots.

We are back in the magical wonderland of Zootropolis, in which all animals live together, big and small, prey and predator; a place, in fact, where the comedy lion can lie down with the hilarious back-talking lamb, and all the animals provide undemanding voiceover work for comedy talent such as Alan Tudyk, who makes a minor vocal appearance. As before, our heroes are an odd couple of cops in the ZPD or Zootropolis Police Department: idealistic young rabbit Judy Hopps (geddit?), voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, and sly fox Nick Wilde, voiced by Jason Bateman, a creature once on the wrong side of the law but now a supposedly reformed character who has joined the police.

Dracula review – Luc Besson’s romantic reimagining of Gothic classic is ridiculous but watchable

The Guardian

Par :Peter Bradshaw

25 novembre 2025 à 10:00

While we don’t necessarily need another film version of Bram Stoker’s story, Besson’s has ambition and panache, and Caleb Landry Jones and Christoph Waltz are perfectly cast

Perhaps there is no great enthusiasm out there for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro of glossiness and bloat. And yet it has to be said: his lavishly upholstered vampire romance has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, including one shot that appears to show a land border between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. So does the evil Count Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. This is a part that he too was born to take on.

Trump wants to revive the Rush Hour franchise. Is he eyeing a return to Hollywood?

The Guardian

Par :Peter Bradshaw

24 novembre 2025 à 17:36

The US president has reportedly asked Paramount for a fourth instalment of the cop comedy starring Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Whether he wants an acting credit or has suddenly come over all inclusive remains to be seen

It is said that by 328BC, having made empires kneel to him, Alexander the Great wept … for there were no more worlds to conquer.

Similarly, having solved the Middle East and Ukraine issues with only a couple of technicalities to iron out and put an end to so many other wars as well, Donald Trump may also be tempted to sob at having run out of important tasks. And yet, just as he is about to kneel in anguish on the Oval Office carpet, he is apparently perking up at the thought of one more mighty challenge.

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