Directed By Daniel Chong
Starring – Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm
The Plot – Mabel (Curda), A 19-year-old animal lover, uses technology that places her consciousness into a robotic beaver to uncover mysteries within the animal world beyond her imagination.
Rated PG for action/peril, some scary images and mild adult language.
POSITIVES
Though it’s been a turbulent last six years for Pixar, full of inferior sequels and underwritten worlds, Hoppers seems primed to restore the prosperous mantle once more for the world’s most popular animation studio, a feat made all the more remarkable considering this movie received such a bafflingly minimized marketing campaign to fully support it. This is a sweetly sincere and innocently affectionate exploration that abides by the studio’s proven formula of feeling every bit entertainingly indulging as it is objectively enlightening, offering a refreshingly responsible take on the outlining of co-existence and environmentalism that supplants a very honestly brash opinion of human’s irreplicable damage on nature, as well as nature’s psychological healing component towards destressing, and while that might sound boring to anyone who takes the rarities of this world for granted as everyday assurances, the script from Daniel Chong and Jesse Andrews enlist a lot of exaggerated personality and unique creativity in offering an expansive look at the togetherness of the Ecosystem, in order to craft something environmentally integral to everyone living within it, all the while underlining it with that same kind of heartfelt component of familial ties that binds so much of Pixar’s best work together. In fact, when I saw the trailers for this movie, there was no semblance of sentimentality to its creative outlining, instead with its marketing zeroing more in the balance of personalities that make up such a colorfully assorted cast of characters, but from the word go, Chong and Andrews firmly establish the importance of a tender dynamic between Mabel and her elderly grandmother that drives so much of the irreplaceable importance of nature’s most distinguished setting, with it feeling like the last linear link that she has to that bygone past, in the depths of a surmised promise between them, and while this could easily feel like a wet blanket of sweetly saccharine eating away at the movie’s approachability on youthful audiences, it instead supplants impeccable value to the meaningful magnitude of the established environment that everyone can unanimously relate towards, all the while making Mabel, in all of the beauty of her Japanese-American representation, every bit the kind of adventurously fearless and resilient protagonist that little girls in the audience strive morally to cement themselves as. This is really the case for all of the characters assembled, as not only does each of the decorated actors work wonderfully towards eliciting magnetic presences that energetically bring the expressionism of the animation to life, especially those of Saturday Night Live veterans like Melissa Villasenor, Ego Nwodim, Vanessa Bayer, and Bobby Moynihan, but there’s also a consciousness to their respective actions that feel justified, even in the extent of some of them coming across as the flirted antagonist of sorts for the plot’s developments, but instead doing what’s best for their respective species to survive. The cast works unanimously across the board, though it’s truly Piper Curda’s showcase that is most integral to the movie’s emotional foundation, particularly with Curda channeling a versatility of range throughout an exploration of highs and lows that simultaneously gifts her the miraculous beauty of life and man’s need to take it all away in one fall swoop. Flawed as it may be, Mabel is someone who constantly acts off of emotions, especially with nature breeding such a vulnerability to her consciousness, but there’s an air of maturity to Curda’s portrayal that properly evades naivety, even within the inexperience of the character forced to live as a proverbial fish out of water to this environment, and while bouncing off of heavyweights like Meryl Streep, Jon Hamm, and Dave Franco, the young actress more than holds her own against her charismatic opposition, brandishing an environmental adaptability that never sacrifices her humanity, even in the confines of her atomical new body. While all of these aforementioned components certainly help in carving out an exhilaratingly endearing experience for the audience, the animation is the wings that feverishly accelerate it to soaring levels, with colorfully radiant and expressive designs that warmly bring this world and its chaotic characters to life. What’s unique in this instance is not only how the animation dabbles in the deviation of its depiction, with a variance of designs meticulously shifting between human and animal perception of that character, but also how the animation occasionally revels in the rampant atmosphere of Chong’s intended direction, featuring everything from first person perspectives to prolific framing techniques, that allows some of these beastly species to stand out more imposingly than others. Very rarely does an animated movie get celebrated for how the cinematography plays a vital role to the construction of its overall presentation, but there’s just so much feverish intensity visually that lends itself to the spontaneity atmospherically, attaining with them a variety of laughs within its cleverly inserted gags that constantly keeps the storytelling and various interactions so engaging, and while this is certainly nothing new to a documented studio like Pixar, there’s a sharpened consistency to every texture or frame that mesmerizingly feels intricately effortless to immerse ourselves in, especially one tasked with the immense responsibility of conveying nature in its most escapable ambiance, far from the ruinous foundations of concrete and commercialism that threaten tranquility among its seekers.
NEGATIVES
Much about Hoppers lent itself to an imaginatively enlightening experience that simultaneously caters to audiences of all ages and demographics, however there are some occasional adverse effects to Chong’s direction that unintentionally illustrate the inexperience of this serving as his first feature length directing effort, with the movie’s two halves on a collision course of varied pacing that eventually sneaks up on the smoothly seamlessness of its storytelling sequencing. As to where the first hour of this movie is among the very best paced movies that I have seen in 2026 thus far, with no scene either overstaying its welcome or feeling underdeveloped towards its entertainment value, the last forty minutes, specifically the climax, feels like two third acts that are stacked chaotically one upon the other, with very little breathing room of digestion between them to properly measure the stakes and urgency of the situation, and while frequent action has rarely been a bad thing in any movie, here it clutters the execution a bit towards eventually feeling tedious to the interpretation of the audience, where the extent of its runtime feels slightly long-winded in the tooth, leaving as many as three different endings, the likes of which any of them could be fitting for this movie’s lasting impression. In addition to this, while Hoppers definitely goes out of its way to craft an insightfully elaborate extensive world-building to the creativity of its screenplay, there is an element of derivativity to the structural outline that maintained a distracting emphasis throughout the majority of the engagement, with two such movies feeling like evidential inspiration to Chong’s outlets. The first is actually mentioned in the dialogue, with Mabel expressing that this scientific ability for humans to hop into different species is “Just like Avatar”, which it is when you consider it’s about a human going into the world of another species to save it, with another outsider human tasked to wreck this world devastatingly. The second, strangely enough, is Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Certainly for the foundational outline, but also the beat for beat recreation of the climax, which involves one of their own in the threatening of this wildlife sanctuary, in order to build a freeway. One could certainly write off that these reminders materialize subconsciously as a result of such a universally digestible idea that lends itself to many constructs, but I don’t think there’s enough deviation in the formulaic execution to fully commend this film for its creative originality, keeping it from reaching the highest of highs in the Pixar catalogue, even if it’s the best film that the studio has produced in nearly a decade.
OVERALL
Hoppers is a sweetly sincere and imaginatively charming body transformation film that restores the faith of Pixar enthusiasts with its richly thorough brand of stinging social commentary and familial sentimentality that converges the paths of co-existence and environmentalism on a crash course that tickles the tummies every bit as much as it tantalizes the tears. With vibrantly intoxicating animation capturing nature’s untapped euphoria, as well as energetically enamoring turns from its decorated ensemble, the film is an effectively enlightening walk on the wild side that teaches us compassion for animal sanctuaries, proving that it takes the work of all of us together to keep the world spinning
My Grade: 8.3 or B+