Pixar goes into the woods and comes out batty with a mind-hopping adventure that is downright coo-coo.
By: Craig Allan
Three Stars. See it.
Pixar has had a rough time in the 2020’s. A variety of issues, including three of their movies going streaming only, and unimaginative storytelling due to studio interference, have led to the studio producing some of its least well-liked and worst-performing movies. Pixar always feels like it is against the ropes, struggling to find relevance in a world where movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and K-Pop Demon Hunters by Sony Animation are dominating the conversation. In this competitive cinematic world, it is bold storytelling that will win the day. Pixar aims to achieve this with Hoppers, which at first looks like the typical Pixar fare, but like a beaver dam, has more under the surface. While the movie may start at a caterpillar’s pace, it blossoms into an absolutely insane second half that is so bewildering it actually becomes delightfully fun.
Hoppers follows Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda), a university student desperate to save the pond she visited with her late grandmother (voiced by Karen Huie) from Mayor Jerry Generazzo (voiced by Jon Hamm) who plots with developers to put a skyway through the pond and surrounding forest. With time running out, Mabel discovers a lab underneath Beaverton University where scientists created the technology to put human consciousness into animals. Thinking that could be the way to bring the animals back to the pond, Mabel transfers her mind into a robot beaver and makes her way to the forest to rally the animals and save the pond.
The first half of Hoppers is a bit sloth-like, with the movie spending a lot of time establishing characters, motives, and the workings of the movie’s world. However, once the movie enters its second half, it goes absolutely feral. The movie includes everything from the main character killing a creature that is a descendant of royalty, kidnapping someone while translating the animals’ instructions through a phone, and a scary encounter with someone living through a mix of The Terminator (1984) and Face/Off (1997). All this with a scene involving the use of an apex predator that is so nuts it will make audiences wonder if psychedelic toad venom had been slipped into the concession food.
All of these make for some odd material, but in a way, they are also moments that make Hoppers kind of special. The movie goes places that an audience won’t see coming. This movie is very bold for a kids’ movie like some psychotic version of Day of the Dolphin (1973). This is director Daniel Chong’s second directorial film after We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020), and seeing as his previous experience involved working on a lot of productions for Cartoon Network, which itself is no stranger to off-kilter storylines, it makes sense how his style would work for this subject matter. While contributing to the story, Jessie Andrews is the main script writer. Andrews has written many works involving people in their teens suffering from loss, like Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl (both the 2012 book and the 2015 movie) and the film Every Day (2018) so this kind of story about a woman trying to save something she loves is very much in his wheelhouse. While the foundation for Mabel is not as interesting as the movie’s bug-out second half, its still interesting overall due to its premise. Nonetheless, the film readily acknowledges that it is a bit of a ripoff of Avatar (2009).
While its animation may still reside in the style of CGI Pixar pioneered, Hoppers is some ambitious storytelling. A much-needed hardwiring for a studio that has been treading water for a while. It might be too scary for the under-eight-year-olds, but for older children, and adults alike, Hoppers is a dam good time.
