Movie Review: Hoppers

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PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Hop to it!

Synopsis

Hoppers follows Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), a college student with a love for nature and all animals, big and small. She finds herself in constant conflict with Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm), the popular Mayor of Beaverton who wants to continue construction of a freeway that would cut through a local animal habitat. The animals have all fled due to the construction, and Mabel believes if she can get them to return, Mayor Jerry will put his plans to a halt.

Utilizing the “hopping” technology invented by her professor, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy), Mabel inhabits the body of a robotic beaver so she can communicate with the animals and convince them to come home. She befriends King George (Bobby Moynihan), the benevolent beaver monarch of all the mammals in the forest, and with man and beast now working together, they just may be able to keep Mother Nature intact.

My thoughts

When the first trailer for Hoppers was released, the people on the internet couldn’t help but do what they do best and rush to their keyboards to complain, “Hey, this is just Avatar but with beavers!” Funny how people have been complaining about Avatar having a derivative plot for so long now that we’ve come full circle to accuse new movies of ripping it off. The internet just loves to complain, I guess.

However, Hoppers isn’t a rip-off of Avatar. It clearly seems inspired to an extent, down to Mabel telling Dr. Sam the hopping technology “is just like Avatar!”, but that’s where the similarities really end. If anything, Hoppers is more like The Wild Robot with how it explores the relationship between nature and humanity. While Hoppers wears its inspirations on its sleeve, it’s still able to chart its own unique path, telling a story that’s engaging, heartwarming, and hilarious.

Giving a dam

Engaging, heartwarming, and hilarious are three words that have perfectly described Pixar ever since they came onto the animation scene with Toy Story. While their track record has been a bit rockier lately than when they were pumping out classic after classic during their heyday, they’ve mostly tried keeping those values intact. Hoppers features Pixar in great form, with director Daniel Chong and screenwriter Jesse Andrews hitting all three targets.

Hoppers is easily the funniest Pixar movie in a long time. The humor was much more irreverent than I was expecting, featuring sarcastic dialogue and absurd visual humor. The gags are aplenty, and even better, sometimes totally unexpected. A scene depicting a gaggle of geese chasing after a car and attempting to kill the driver in one of the most ridiculously funny ways possible had me in stitches. Like something out of 90s Nickelodeon, which I never thought I’d use to positively describe a Pixar film.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Pixar movie without copious heartstring pulling, which Chong and Andrews tastefully work into the story. Growing up, Mabel spent a lot of time with her Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie) in the area Mayor Jerry wants to destroy, so there’s a personal connection beyond her emotional bond with nature. The sentimentality isn’t laid on as thick as Pixar usually does, with far less waterworks, but the way the resolutions tie everything together was sweetly endearing.

While the overall story isn’t wholly original, Chong and Andrews explore their themes through a different lens than most movies like this. It’s not a simple-minded “humanity bad, nature good” narrative, but looks at things with more shades of grey. The general premise of “we’re all in this together” is solid theming for a movie geared towards kids, but Hoppers goes a bit further. In this incredibly conflicted world, some people need a reminder that we need to actually talk and hear each other out instead of using people’s worst tendencies to entirely define them.

All in this together

I’m firmly in the camp that the people at Pixar need to update how they animate their human characters, as they come off as so generic and lifeless, but the critters of the forest are the ones we’re all really here to see anyway. The lush, green landscapes that surround our animal characters are gorgeous to take in, but the animators aren’t going for total photorealism overall. It’s something I appreciate, as it allows them to give the animals unique designs and personalities that make the world feel alive instead of simply technically impressive.

The way the animal characters are designed already gives them so much personality, with the voice actors giving them all that extra kick. Mabel is a charming lead character, especially when she’s in adorable robotic beaver form. Piper Curda gives her a peppy personality that’s never overbearing, with a genuine-sounding passion for nature and animals. She plays off Bobby Moynihan and Jon Hamm well, who are both putting in the effort to elevate their characters’ personalities with unique performances. On the other hand, Dave Franco is, well, Dave Franco.

The most fun part of the animal kingdom in Hoppers is the Animal Council, consisting of King George, who leads the mammals, and the other monarchs who lead the fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. They’ve all learned to coexist, knowing that for the world to keep spinning, some of them are going to have to eat each other to survive. Again, much of this felt a bit too much like The Wild Robot, but hey, that’s not a bad movie to be compared to. The sights may have been familiar, but thanks to the filmmakers building to the satisfying conclusion, it all makes for an emotionally resonant story.

Final verdict

Hoppers did something for me that several recent movies have failed to do: put a huge smile on my face from beginning to end. It’s not the most innovative or groundbreaking animated flick, but Daniel Chong, Jesse Andrews, and their cast and crew bring that Pixar magic as well as a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s unlike anything Pixar has done before, while still maintaining all of the qualities that make it Pixar, being pure entertainment for young and old alike.