Director Daniel Chong’s Hoppers is (unexpectedly) one of Pixar’s funniest and most entertaining movies.
2025’s Elio was underwhelming. And while it was cute, it didn’t feel as impactful as previous Pixar movies. Or maybe it was because I am not the main target audience of a movie like this; maybe kids found it great.
But then Hoppers came along. While Elio was about a young boy who wanted to find belongingness within alien creatures, Hoppers features a young girl who found her place among animals from the glade.
As a young girl, Mabel was stubborn and had a rebellious streak. At one point, she was caught trying to smuggle out pet animals from the school. She was sent to spend time with her grandmother who lives near the forest. There she learned how being with nature soothes the soul. Eventually, she learned how to manage her emotions and find solace in the forest.
Years later, construction plans from Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) threatened the glade’s ecosystem, leading to the displacement of its animals. Although she tries to convince the mayor to stop building a bypass that would “save people four minutes” in their commute (by getting a petition signed), she is told that the glade is dead because the animals are gone.
She then realized that she needs to bring the animals back. But how?
She soon discovers her professor, Dr. Fairfax (Kathy Najimy) has figured out how to successfully transfer a human’s consciousness to a robotic animal through a machine. This gave her the perfect opportunity to seek out the glade’s former residents so, without thinking, she hops into the machine and sends her awareness to a robot beaver.
The movie’s premise is pretty straightforward and simple. Think of it like Avatar, although Dr. Fairfax (Kathy Najimy) would disagree: a remotely controlled body that thinks, speaks, and behaves like a human.
While the first few minutes of the film were a bit uneventful, the riot comes after Mabel becomes a beaver. Everything that transpires from that moment is entertaining.
I did not expect to laugh a lot when I entered the cinema but I found myself either chuckling or LOL-ing because of the different shenanigans that unfold on the screen. The animal characters, starting from the stoic beaver named Loaf (Eduardo Franco) to King George (Bobby Moynihan) and even members of the Animal Council, all had personalities. Although it would have been nice if we saw more of their characters, the ones that got more screentime, particularly the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep) and Titus (Dave Franco), were enough to add to the movie’s entertainment value.
Throughout the film, the movie has never lost its heart. And that’s one of the best things about it. Beneath the funny scenes, the connection between Mabel and King George (and the rest of the animals) is one of the movie’s strongest themes. It’s also one of the ways the filmmakers show us how strong-willed characters aren’t automatically bad characters. It’s easy to label Mabel as unpleasant because of her deviant streak. What the movie did was show there’s more to her stubbornness. And that it is rooted in good intentions.
Mabel’s quest to get the animals to stop Mayor Jerry by any means necessary (but she didn’t realize just how far the animals are willing to go) resulted in too many ridiculous yet hilarious antics.
There are two stand-out scenes: one where the Mabel and King George, together with their friends, carjacks Mayor Jerry and used a cellphone to communicate with the shocked human; and a succeeding scene where a shark is being airlifted by a flock of birds in an attempt to fulfill a kill order (yes, to literally kill) Mayor Jerry in a zany car chase scene.
The audiences were hysterical at this point in the movie. The riot continued until the final act, where it took a bit of a darker turn.
Up until this point, Hoppers has been child-friendly and innocently entertaining. One of the things I liked in the movie is its boldness when exploring more serious tones. Beneath the movie’s cute and funny surface lies serious themes that reflect a lot of issues that endanger our society. Chong and his team were willing to take that route to drive a point. And they did. Without being too on the nose.
More importantly, they pulled it off without losing the humor.
Hoppers is now showing in cinemas.
