Review: Cryptozoo

As an artist, Dash Shaw has certainly been coming to his own between his breakout hit My Entire High School and now Cryptozoo. An almost throwback to the more simplistic art forms you may see on early Adult Swim (Tom Goes To The Mayor/12 oz Mouse vibes are all over this 90-minute feature) that, with the death of Adobe Flash, are becoming increasingly rarer. There’s no denying the artistry and attention to detail that comes along with what is almost like one long trip. As “Matthew” (Michael Cera) and “Amber” (Louisa Krause) get barbecued on whatever strain of peyote they decide to bring to their picnic, the duo heads off into the woods and stumbles into a zoo. Not recognizing the extremely tall fence as being a warning by the owners that there could be something dangerous beyond, the duo opts to scale the fence.

Welcome to Cryptozoo. This isn’t any ordinary zoo with lions, tigers, and bears…no lie. Rather, it’s a zoo filled with fantastical cryptids. For those that don’t know, cryptids are creatures that are claimed to have existed at some point, but never been fully documented. For example, I’m from New Jersey, and we have the “Jersey Devil”. While no actual proof has been given to the creature’s existence, the lure of the creature has inspired everything to the NJ Devils of the NHL, the Jersey Devil roller coaster in Six Flags Great Adventure, and helped give rise to the Weird NJ semi-annual magazine that spawned a TV show and created a decent paranormal following over the years. In the case of Cryptozoo, these creatures are real, and more specifically, the lot of them have been captured, placed in a zoo where humans and cryptids alike can coexist and hopefully bring in a paying audience that can help sustain the habitat.

There are a number of personality types that are have different takes on what direction should go into, pretty much ripped from the Jurassic Park/World mythos that had long covered this topic to great extent.There are those who simply want to see the creatures be made a part of this world in a safe and friendly manner, hence Cryptozoo. There are those that believe these creatures should be hunted and killed. Then there are those who believe these creatures should be freed and be allowed to have their own freewill, whatever happens happens.

Other than the initial scene that sees Michael Cera belt out one of the most nonsensical orgasms I’ve ever heard, Dash Shaw does a good job of setting up these themes and almost forcing the viewer to pick a side. Even with the lack of originality that comes with the premise, I had a lot of fun seeing animated renditions of a multitude of creatures mingle with the subspecies that is our disgraced humanity. As the movie paces, the trippy visuals take hold while the plot starts to unravel and turn into an effort that’s actually subpar with another animated property that did a rendition of imaginary creatures trying to mingle with humanity.

The overall result is a hodge podge of ideas summoned from other properties that did this better, but there’s no denying the animation styles utilized that are kaleidoscopic to the point of being considered fine art. Dash is a rare breed of animation producers still doing things mostly by hand, an art that is slowly falling by the wayside. But, the young animation producer would do well with some sort of a co-writer that might bring with them more original ideas with a more cogent execution.