By JJ Ledewitz, Senior Arts and Culture Editor
After 2023’s Elemental and 2025’s Elio, Pixar is back with another original film. And it’s actually pretty good.
Hoppers, which premiered on March 6, follows Mabel (Piper Curda), a wild-mannered and determined college student with an emotional connection to the glade in her town of Beaverton. She cares for all of the animals that call it home — especially the beavers. But when the ambitious yet nefarious Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) reveals plans to erect a highway directly on top of the glade (the construction of which forced the animals away), Mabel realizes that the only way to stop him is to bring the animals back to the glade once more. After finding a way to plant her consciousness inside a realistic beaver robot, she tries to convince the animals to move back. In the process, she accidentally causes a war that may destroy the entire city of Beaverton.
After half a decade of more straightforward animated films, Pixar has finally brought back the wackiness that makes its movies special. Hoppers is like Avatar on steroids. Each member of the animal kingdom provides another level of insanity that Mabel can’t deal with. The more time she spends exploring the forest as a (robotic) beaver and trying to convince the animals to move back to the glade, the more we learn about the zany — and deadly — politics of the animals’ new temporary homes. The film throws you into this weird world headfirst, only afterward introducing more characters for you to care about, ones that decide to help Mabel on her quest.
The first animal that begins to help her is King George (Bobby Moynihan), a beaver who rules over the entire mammal kingdom. George proves to be a great companion for Mabel in her quest to stop Mayor Jerry. He shares a lot of qualities with other deuteragonists in Pixar history — he is in a place of comfort and doesn’t see the urgency of the protagonist’s mission, but after being proved wrong, he slowly decides to help and ultimately becomes one of the most interesting and emotional characters in the entire movie.
The animal kingdom has its own set of personalities that George introduces Mabel to, and each animal, ironically enough, has a typical human name that they are known by in the animal kingdom. There’s Ellen, a grumpy bear, Diane, a surprisingly polite shark, Tom Lizard, a lizard, and Loaf, a slow, tired beaver. George also introduces Mabel to the government of the animal kingdom, the “Animal Council” — there’s a menacing frog who is king of the amphibians, a trio of snakes as queens of the reptiles, a fish in a bowl (when needed) as queen of the fish, a goose as king of the birds and, last but not least, a butterfly as queen of the insects and the one in charge of the entire council (who is, for some reason, voiced by acting legend Meryl Streep). The dynamics are absolutely bonkers — for both the viewer and Mabel herself — which is what makes the entire film that much more entertaining to watch. Still, it manages to find a balance between its insanity and its groundedness — it is, after all, the animal kingdom, the backyard of all of humanity. There is a familiar shade of faction-related politics, a la Game of Thrones or even The Sopranos. This balance has been missing in Pixar’s most recent run of original films, and here it manages to strike that balance perfectly.
While the drama of the animal kingdom is entertaining to watch, the real selling point of Hoppers is Mabel’s emotional connection to the glade, a place her grandmother used to take her to sit and watch the animals. This made Mabel appreciate the glade, and it is why she is trying as hard as she can to make sure it stays intact. In this aspect, Hoppers harkens back to Pixar movies that mastered their emotional stories, like Toy Story and Inside Out. Not only does the movie make you feel for the characters, but it also shows you exactly how much their goals mean to them and why you should want what they want too.
Mastering a combination of wacky worldbuilding, emotional storytelling and interesting characters, Hoppers solidifies itself as one of the better Pixar films of the last ten years. It’s a great movie and one that is worth seeing in theaters.
Photo Credit: Unsplash