Hoppers review: Pixar’s return to form
Pixar seems to be primarily focused on sequels and prequels at the moment, so it’s nice to see them bringing us a creative and thoroughly original movie with Hoppers, which marks a return to form.
The animated film follows Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda), a teenager who promised her late grandmother that she would protect the glade, their favourite place. So when Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) decides to destroy the glade to make his new highway, Mabel has to resort to desperate measures. Hijacking her professor’s “hopping” technology, Mabel transports her mind into a life-like robotic beaver to communicate with other animals and encourage them to save the glade.
Hoppers revolves around an unusual and inventive idea that has so much creative and comedic potential. It is really funny – proper laugh-out-loud hilarious – has a lot of heart and an excellent message about saving green spaces amid city expansions, caring about animals and their habitats, and the benefits of being out in nature.
It hits its stride when Mabel uses the hopping technology for the first time and goes to a nearby pond in her new beaver form to encourage the animals to return to the glade, where a construction site looms. The world-building is excellent and the Pixar team really tries to see life through various animals’ eyes. She meets a wide array of characters, most importantly, George (Bobby Moynihan), the king of the pond. He introduces her to the “pond rules” and creatures big and small, and there is a brilliant toe-tapping montage of dam building set to Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend. At this point, I was ready to give Hoppers four stars.
But unfortunately, the film loses its way once the action moves out of the pond/glade and into the city. Mabel inadvertently incites violence against Mayor Jerry, and then her mission changes to save Jerry instead of the glade (although it all comes together eventually). It’s still good – the text-to-speech gag is the highlight of the film – but it lost its strong storytelling grip and my interest dipped along with it.
Hoppers boasts a stellar voice cast. Curda does a fabulous job as a teenager who is filled with rage and grief and not sure where to place her anger. She isn’t perfect by any means; she feels like a realistic teenager who makes mistakes. I also enjoyed Moynihan as the loveable George, Meryl Streep as the fearsome Insect Queen and Dave Franco as the power-hungry, evil Insect King.
While I wasn’t too gripped by the Mayor Jerry story diversion, I still respect the heck out of director Daniel Chong and co. for what they’ve achieved with Hoppers. It’s an entertaining film for all the family, and as an animal lover myself, I fully support its message about caring for nature.
In cinemas from Friday 6th March