The original “Zootopia” was a minor miracle. Here was a Disney animated film that took themes of race and prejudice and managed to make a sensitive-to-all-sides tale, anthropomorphize it and, as a bonus, sneak in a Department of Motor Vehicles sloth gag that the DMV is still wincing from.

A sequel coming almost a decade later, “Zootopia 2” isn’t as good. It’s a more timid and tame movie that leans largely on the (still winning) duo of Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and the small-time hustler fox Nick Wilde ( Jason Bateman ). Both are now out-to-prove-themselves rookies on the police force, nicknamed “the fuzz.”

Nobody would call the original “Zootopia” an especially biting satire. But, still, the sequel is a little toothless — not just Nick’s move from con man to cop but throughout the metropolis. Nick’s baby-posing partner in crime, the fennec fox Finnick (Tommy Lister Jr., who died in 2020), is only briefly seen. Missing entirely is anyone like Tommy Chong’s nudist stoner yak. A hint of gentrification, you might say, has swept over Zootopia.

So “Zootopia 2,” directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard (both veterans from the first film), is, like many long-in-coming sequels, a slightly watered down version of what came before. But the central relationship of Judy and Nick, a team-up with some echoes of “48 Hours,” remains a compelling one, and the primary reason that “Zootopia 2” will be plenty satisfying to families seeking more cartoony lions and tigers and bears (oh my) this November. It looks great, it’s mildly funny and animal cities are fun.

That’s particularly because of Bateman’s fox. For an actor with a long list of credits, it might sound odd to say, but Nick Wilde is Bateman’s best movie role. A sly, sarcastic but secretly sweet canine in a loose tie is so squarely in Bateman’s wheelhouse. No one can better draw out a line about making a rug from the fur off a skunk’s butt, and I mean that as a high compliment.

Out to prove themselves as detectives, Judy and Nick cause widespread damage through the city chasing a criminal, leading Idris Elba’s surly cape buffalo Police Chief Bogo to order them into a therapy session for dysfunctional partners. (Other members include an elephant and mouse duo.)

Acknowledging and talking through differences is the running theme, which dovetails with a plot that goes to the roots of Zootopia. Snakes, we learn, aren’t allowed in the city. As Zootopia prepares for its centennial celebration, Judy uncovers some clues that suggest a snake infiltration. But when one turns up (a cloying Ke Huy Quan as Gary De’Snake), Judy and Nick realize that snakes aren’t so bad.

They follow a deepening conspiracy to keep out snakes that goes back to the founding of Zootopia, “Chinatown”-like. A family of Lynxes, the Lynxleys, has always taken ownership for the weather walls that divide the city into variously accommodating climates. But even one of their own, Pawbert Lynxley (Andy Samberg), suspects foul play — which, I’m sorry to report, doesn’t include a single fowl.

But there are, to be sure, plenty of puns (Gnu Jersey, Burning Mammal) to be found, as well as a “Shining” reference and a quick nod to “Ratatouille” (a sequel to which is also reportedly in development). In “Zootopia,” this stuff is like shooting fish in a barrel. Back is Shakira as a pop-star gazelle named … Gazelle. New characters include a beaver podcaster named Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster) and a long-maned stallion mayor (Patrick Warburton). Judy and Nick’s adventures take them to a New Orleans-like reptile-friendly enclave and a snowy Tundatown.

For a movie that was in so many ways about a country mouse (bunny) coming to the big city and finding endless varieties of wildlife, both upright and shady, the “Zootopia” sequel spends too much of its time away from its mammalian metropolis. Even Nick Wilde — no longer scheming, more in touch with his feelings — doesn’t feel quite so wild now. The fun caper spirit of the first movie is alive enough to carry Bush and Howard’s film, but you can’t help feel like sequel-ization also means domestication.

“Zootopia 2,” a Walt Disney Co. release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for action/violence and rude humor. Running time: 108 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when you can’t walk into a multiplex or turn on your television (especially the Hallmark Channel) without encountering a movie determined to make you feel good about the holidays. It can all make you feel as Scrooge-like as washed-up Hollywood action movie star Brad Mac, the protagonist in Chris Foggin’s new addition to the overcrowded genre. It’s no spoiler to reveal that by the end of Tinsel Town (a cute punning title), Brad has learned to embrace the holiday, even if it means having to appear in a British pantomime show.

Brad is played by Kiefer Sutherland, displaying an admirable willingness to make fun of the fact that his days as Jack Bauer on 24 are long behind him (at least until the next reboot). In the best Scrooge tradition, Brad — a three-time Razzie Award nominee who at the story’s beginning is filming the seventh installment of his cheesy action movie series Killing Time — is an obnoxious blowhard who hits on his married co-star and refuses to do his own stunts.

He quickly gets his comeuppance when he’s informed that the studio has nixed future installments of the franchise and that he’s basically become unemployable because he’s too difficult. His beleaguered agent says the only job available is a theater role in England, so Brad reluctantly makes the trek across the pond.

Greeted by his cheerful driver Nigel (Mawaan Rizwan) and informed that they’re headed to the Savoy, Brad settles down for a nap in the car. When he wakes up, he discovers that he’s not in London but rather the small town of Stoneford, three hours away. He’s not staying at the famous Savoy Hotel, but rather the Savoy Guest House that’s currently without running water. And the role he’s about to take on is Buttons in a pantomime production of Cinderella.

Just a few minutes in, it’s obvious that Tinsel Town requires a significant suspension of disbelief. But if you’re in the right frame of mind, you’ll just go with it. Nearly everything that occurs next proves thoroughly predictable, from Brad’s outrage at his current predicament to his hostility toward the cast and crew working on the show to his disengaged relationship with his young daughter (Matilda Firth), who’s now living with her remarried mother (Alice Eve) in London.

Along the way, however, Foggin and his quartet of screenwriters deliver plenty of entertainment. It’s not surprising, considering that the director and several of the scribes were previously responsible for such similarly sweet British comedies as Bank of Dave and Fisherman’s Friends.

It also helps considerably that the cast includes more than a few ringers, including Rebel Wilson as Jill, the show’s choreographer; Derek Jacobi as the stage door manager who used to be a panto star himself; and stage legend and three-time Olivier Award winner Maria Friedman as the actress playing the Fairy Godmother. Jacobi in particular gets the chance to shine, with a poignant monologue in which his character talks tenderly about his deceased husband.

The plotting becomes needlessly complicated at times, such as with Jack becoming a local hero after foiling a burglary, and later disgracing himself with a drunken tirade at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, which leads to him being arrested and put on trial. There are subplots involving Jill’s contentious relationship with her bullying ex-husband (Danny Dyer) and the burgeoning romance between the panto’s Prince Charming (Lucien Laviscount, Emily in Paris) and Cinderella (Savannah Lee Smith, Gossip Girl). By the time the film ends with a spirited ensemble rendition of Katy Perry’s “Roar,” you may feel as overstuffed as if you’d gorged at a Christmas banquet. 

There are plenty of amusing moments involving the colorful townspeople and the central character’s fish-out-of-water unease in his new situations. But Tinsel Town is most effective when concentrating on Brad’s inevitable heartwarming transformation from arrogant movie star to gleeful member of the panto’s hardworking ensemble, and his newfound maturity in terms of being a loving father to his daughter. Sutherland makes it all work, delivering a thoroughly winning performance that makes you buy into the overall hokum.