Film reviews: ‘The Secret Agent’ and ‘Zootopia 2’

‘The Secret Agent’

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho (R)

★★★★

“This is one of the year’s best films, and one of the most distinctive,” said Matt Zoller Seitz in RogerEbert.com. An award winner at Cannes, the sixth feature from Brazilian writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho is “a drama, a satire, an intriguingly laid-back espionage film, and a re-creation of a time and place,” yet that’s not all. Wagner Moura stars as a young widower on the run who returns to his home city to check on his young son in 1977, during Brazil’s brutal dictatorship. “Murder is everywhere,” a constant threat. But Mendonça is less focused on the violence than how people learn to adapt to it, and “if you’re willing to bend with the story, The Secret Agent will take you places movies rarely go.” Moura, whose
character goes by the alias Marcelo, “carries the film with a star turn of suave determination,” said Richard Brody in The New Yorker.

But Mendonça has made a political thriller that’s “overflowing with sharply drawn characters,” including the elderly den mother of the safe house Marcelo moves into, a female neighbor who takes an interest in Marcelo, and a corrupt police chief. Mendonça’s wandering focus “brings history to life with bracing immediacy,” a feat all the more impressive because of his film’s “audacious twists of cinematic form,” including a hallucinatory sequence in which a severed human leg itself turns murderous. “The filmmaker’s refusal to present a traditional thriller payoff may frustrate some viewers,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. Though it’s a surprising choice, “it’s in keeping with The Secret Agent’s depiction of the way in which dictatorships torment and destroy via denial.”

‘Zootopia 2’

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard (PG)

★★★

“Sometimes more of the same isn’t a bad thing,” said Amelia Emberwing in The Wrap. The original Zootopia, after all, was a 2016 megahit that won
the Oscar for an animated feature while delivering a powerful message about the dangers of discrimination. And while the long-awaited sequel doesn’t break new ground, “there’s a lot to love in Zootopia 2.” The movie returns us to a colorful city populated by anthropomorphized animals. Its
animation is “bright and pop-y.” And it didn’t have to back off its core message to haul in $560 million in its first five days, the largest-ever launch for an animated film. Unfortunately, “the sweetness of the original is absent in the sequel,” said Soren Andersen in The Seattle Times.

Sure, it still features Judy the lovable bunny cop, and she’s paired again
with Nick, a fox who’s learning to be less cynical, but this movie sags when the pair pause the action to analyze the state of their partnership. The rest of the time, the film “seeks to bowl the audience over with
noise, velocity, and an insistent tone that winds up being kind of irritating.” But Zootopia 2 has “the kind of heart that has too long seemed to be missing from other Disney animated offerings,” said Kate Erbland in IndieWire. Not only is there real care put into developing Judy and Nick’s relationship, but this time the duo are also digging into a secret history that explains why there are no reptiles in their city, giving real weight
to the film’s messaging. “That’s not to imply that Zootopia 2 isn’t funny, zippy, and highly enjoyable.” To me, it most certainly is.