In Disney’s “Zootopia 2”, directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, rookie detectives Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) investigate the surprise appearance of a reptile in their mammals-only metropolis. Teaming up with Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan) and conspiracy theory podcaster Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster), they uncover a dastardly plot by the power-hungry Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn), and follow a trail that leads them deep into Zootopia’s dark and secret past.

Never has world-building been this entertaining. From its opening scenes to its spectacular finale, “Zootopia 2” presents a fantastical reality filled with breathtaking attention to detail. The screen is alive with sight gags and micro-details drawing on the humorous interplay between the city’s vast menagerie of animals, and the filmmakers never miss an opportunity for puns and wordplay, from the media giant ZNN (Zootopia News Network) to suspicious catering vans branded with “Amoose Bouche” logos.

The same meticulous design is evident in previously-unseen parts of Zootopia, visited by Hopps and Wilde for the first time in this film. The most notable of these is Marsh Market, a bustling waterside community populated by marine animals, where the preferred currency is fish. Led by their eccentric guide, Nibbles, Hopps and Wilde enter a sunken ship containing a secret speakeasy where all the customers are reptiles. Once more, visual humor tops the agenda, with such memorable moments as Wilde accidentally removing the tail of a lounge lizard, after which both detectives endure the challenge of eating a plateful of squirming worms.

Intertwined with visual gags is an abundance of witty references to popular films, from animated classics like “Ratatouille” and “Tangled,” to the frantic car chases of the James Bond movies, to the adrenaline reviving scene from “Pulp Fiction.” In this respect, “Zootopia 2” is truly a love letter to cinema. Even “The Silence of the Lambs” makes an appearance, with a creepy cameo from the incarcerated sheep Dawn Bellwether (Jenny Slate), who channels Hannibal Lecter when she says to Wilde, “I hope you like my new home, I wove it with my own wool.” Later in the film, as Pawbert Lynxley (Andy Samberg) shuffles maniacally through a snow-bound hedge maze echoing Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” we recognize elements of Jack Nicholson lurking in his character design.

Inside the humor are a number of powerful themes, including the power of individuals to effect change even when the odds seem overwhelming. Perhaps appropriately, it is bold, obsessive Hopps who expresses this most eloquently, when she asserts that, “The world will never be a better place if no one is brave enough to do the right thing”. During the film’s closing scenes, after Hopps and Wilde have proved themselves brave enough to do exactly that, we see them dancing and taking selfies with the innocent enthusiasm of youth … and are reminded that these two characters are in truth very young. The message becomes a rallying cry to trust in the next generation. Young people might make mistakes, but perhaps we need their abundant energy and fearless optimism to save us all.

No less powerful is the theme of segregation and alienation. In the city of Zootopia, reptiles are not just second class citizens – they are undesirables who are utterly forbidden from entering the metropolis. This timely commentary on social attitudes is brought into sharp focus by Milton Lynxley, a ruthless, power-mad narcissist who wants only to fulfill his own agenda … and who will stop at nothing to do it. Nowhere is this more chilling than in the scene where Lynxley orders Hopps and Wilde to be killed. “But aren’t there laws?” protests the city’s Mayor Brian Winddancer (Patrick Warburton). Lynxley, who considers himself to be above the law, simply repeats his demand, musing, “Maybe I chose the wrong mayor.” Ironically, it takes the outcast Gary De’Snake to cut Lynxley down to size, when he remarks to Hopps, “The world was never meant to be on one animal’s shoulders.”

If “Zootopia 2” has one central theme, however, it is surely the celebration of diversity. Mayor Winddancer spells this out early in the movie when he proclaims, “If a lowly country bunny and a shifty, likely criminal fox can … solve bias and stereotype forever, then maybe we can all embrace our differences and be better Zoogether.” Later, as “Zootopia 2” nears its conclusion, Wilde restates this ideal when he says to a news reporter, “If we just try to understand one another, we would see that our differences don’t really make any difference at all. Maybe we’d even see that what makes me ‘me’ and you ‘you’ can make us even stronger.”

Wilde is able to say this thanks to the rite of passage he experiences through the course of the narrative. In an earlier scene, he rejects Hopps’ idealism with the cynical comment, “The world is what it is, and sometimes being a hero just doesn’t make a difference.” Transformed by everything he has experienced – especially what he has learned from his detective partner and friend – he ultimately reaches a state of enlightenment where he is willing to risk his life to save her. Hopps, too, experiences her own growth arc, helped in part by the street-smart advice of Wilde. When they go undercover at the Zootennial Gala, Wilde tries to teach his up-tight partner how to be cool. “You want to fit in?” he says. “Commando is not gonna cut it. It’s not just the clothes – it’s the vibe.”

By listening to each other, and learning to see each other clearly, both Hopps and Wilde achieve a new level of mutual respect and love. It all comes together in a wonderful scene shortly after they have saved the day and dispatched the treacherous Pawbert (or so they think). Standing face to face in front of a gorgeous snowscape sunset, they bond with each other by sharing countless new-found nuggets of self-awareness, in an impromptu therapy session where they finally achieve the state of enlightenment they failed to reach in the hilarious “Partners in Crisis” therapy session with Dr Fuzzby (Quinta Brunson).

In this pivotal scene, each character becomes self-aware by clearly seeing their own reflection, as if in a mirror. Just before entering the Zootennial Gala, Wilde studies his own reflection in the side of one of the catering vans, pleased to see how well this kid from the ghetto has brushed up. Cinema itself relies on the power of reflection – whenever we sit down to watch a movie, we bring all our cultural baggage with us, and thus see ourselves reflected in the mirror of cinema.

In “Moby Dick”, Herman Melville made reference to the classical myth of Narcissus, who was seduced by his own reflection. “That same image we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans,” Melville wrote. “It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life.” Like every great film, “Zootopia 2” succeeds in grasping this elusive phantom and making it real, all while treating its audience to a dazzling display of the very best in animation, character design, voice performance, sublime music by Shakira and Michael Giacchino. A creative masterpiece, “Zootopia 2” is certainly an important movie for our complicated times, and its massive box success shows that it speaks to many.