FREEZE FRAME: “Zootopia,” “London Has Fallen,” “Whisky Tango Foxtrot”

With a name like “Zootopia,” you might expect a cute Disney animated flick about anthropomorphic animals. And while you’d be right, “Zootopia” is much, much more. It’s a wildly imaginative, beautifully animated comic crime thriller. “Zootopia” is a utopian city where predator and prey peacefully co-exist by suppressing their aggressive instincts. But when a bunny cop investigates a missing person’s case, she discovers the city’s dark underbelly. “Zootopia” slyly comments on humanity and the very the nature of civilization. There are a few scary moments that might disturb very young viewers, but this funny, thoroughly engaging movie is the year’s most pleasant cinematic surprise.

“London Has Fallen” is the sequel to the 2013 hit action thriller, “Olympus Has Fallen.” This time terrorists attack the funeral of the British Prime Minister and attempt to kill off all of the world’s leaders in one fell swoop. Gerard Butler is back as the backside-kicking secret service agent in charge of protecting the President. Vice President Morgan Freeman calls the shots from back home. It’s arguably jingoistic and exploitive, but “London Has Fallen” is a rousing, high-powered thriller the delivers the action goods.

Tina Fey plays real life foreign correspondent Kim Baker in “Whisky Tango Foxtrot,” an adaptation of Baker’s popular memoir about her decadent and darkly humorous experiences reporting from chaotic, war torn Afghanistan and Pakistan. While neither as funny nor as riveting as it should be, Fey and company make it a mildly absorbing stranger-in-a-strange-land tale.

Also opening this week, ““The Other Side of the Door “(R) is a horror flick about a woman who opens a supernatural portal in a temple in an attempt to see her dead son. Bad move. “Desierto” (R) is a thriller about a loony tunes vigilante who takes on illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. “The Boy and the Beast” is a Japanese anime fantasy about a boy protected by a warrior beast.


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