PLOT: While trying to save a local forest glade, an animal-loving college student, Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), discovers an experimental program where humans can transfer their consciousness into animal avatars. She transfers herself into a beaver body and infiltrates a colony, hoping to repopulate the glade so it can’t be demolished — but she doesn’t realize just how complicated the animal kingdom can be.
REVIEW: Hoppers comes along at a rough time for Pixar. Sure, Inside Out 2 was a smash, but as far as animated hits go, the company has been steadily outpaced by Walt Disney Animation, with both Moana 2 and Zootopia 2 setting box office records. Perhaps in a sign of the times, Hoppers takes a page from what its parent studio has been doing, ditching the high concept of some of their more ambitious efforts for a straightforward, comedic tale with a lot of cute animal characters they can make toys out of.
Hoppers is definitely inoffensive fun, opening at a good time, as a lot of kids will be on March break over the next few weeks and need something to occupy them for a few hours. But it can’t help but feel like a creative step back for the studio that once produced generation-defining animated classics like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E.
It seems reverse-engineered to win back the audiences it may have lost with some of their more message-heavy fare. The message here is no more provocative than humankind needing to find a better balance with the animal kingdom. Who could argue with that? Unlike other animated movies, there are no real bad guys here. Jon Hamm’s town mayor, Jerry, initially comes off like he’s going to be a villain, but the makers (including We Bare Bears: The Movie director Daniel Chong) make it clear that even if he’s greedy, when the chips are down he’s not such a bad guy. He takes care of his elderly mother and doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone — or anything — when it comes down to it.
Piper Curda’s Mabel is very standard for this kind of Pixar movie, once again headstrong and anti-authoritarian, who through her animal adventures learns how to work on a team. She’s very similar to the protagonist of Disney’s last movie, Elio, albeit not as annoying — mostly thanks to Hoppers having a more creatively cohesive feel, as it wasn’t reworked at the eleventh hour (as infamously happened with a lot of recent Pixar projects). The human stuff is a bit dull, with the first twenty minutes or so of Hoppers struggling to find a good pace. Yet it picks up once Mabel gets plugged into her beaver avatar (there’s also a funny nod to James Cameron’s franchise — from which much of the plot was knowingly pinched).
Hoppers is stolen by former SNL star Bobby Moynihan, who voices the beaver monarch, King George — an affable, cuddly character who will no doubt become a favorite with kids. Much of the film is based around his and Mabel’s friendship as they try to undo some of the damage she causes when she interferes with the natural order of things among the animals. The second act, which takes place in King George’s communal “Superlodge,” is the best part of the movie, before a more madcap third-act twist finds Jerry marked for death by an animal council summoned by Mabel.
The voice cast is spot-on, with Hamm having the right vocal presence for animation (amusingly, his character is clearly based exactly on his actual appearance). Moynihan is the MVP, but Curda also does a good job, as does veteran actress Kathy Najimy (Sister Act), who plays the inventor of the hopping technology. Some bigger names turn up as the council kings, including the late Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Meryl Streep in an amusingly brief turn as the all-powerful insect queen. Dave Franco winds up playing the closest thing the movie has to a bad guy as Titus, her character’s son, amusingly imitating Hamm — albeit in a more high-pitched version — in the final act.
So is Hoppers the next Pixar classic? Definitely not. But to my surprise, I actually had a better time watching this than I did with Zootopia 2. Even if they’re not firing on all cylinders, the brain trust at Pixar still knows how to crank out good family entertainment. The only question is whether they can win back an audience that’s gotten used to watching their stuff on streaming, with the animation not quite as hip as what’s happening at Sony Animation and other studios.
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