Hoppers
Pixar returns to form with an ecologically positive entertainment wired with a sci-fi twist.
Natural science: Ellen, Mabel and Loaf
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
There aren’t enough films about beavers. They’re such industrious, ecologically obliging, biodiversity-friendly and community-minded rodents. But there are not just beavers on show in Hoppers, Pixar’s thirtieth animated feature, but a whole spectrum of characters from the natural world, from a monarch butterfly to a Great White shark called Diane. The theme is conservation, a cause that once seemed worth fighting for, but now that most children are cemented to their mobile phones and so many grown-ups invested in coining it in from dubious property developments, Nature has been taking a back seat. However, Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda) has been an animal lover since she was twelve-years-old when she attempted to steal all the critters from her school and bit a teacher. Then, bundled off to stay with her no-nonsense grandmother, the latter (Karen Huie) introduces her to a world that had previously been invisible to Mabel – until she learned to be patient, to be still, to watch and to listen. It was the beginning of a lifetime’s passion.
Mabel and Grandma’s ‘special place’ was a forest glade, complete with a lake and a beaver dam, a place of enormous peace surrounded by animals – if you only took the time to look. Addressing Mabel’s rage issues, Grandma offers: “It’s hard to be mad when you feel part of something big.” And the last words we hear her say are: “whatever happens, you’ve always got this glade.” Seven years later, the glade is earmarked for demolition, as part of an electoral pledge by the mayor of Beaverton (Jon Hamm) to extend a freeway designed to save cars four minutes of journey time. Ecologically, there is nothing to stop the mayor as animals no longer inhabit the glade. But why not? Mabel smells a rat – or at least a missing beaver…
What follows is endlessly inventive and fun, combining the possibilities of scientific research with the potential power of the natural world, along with the commendable message that we are all the stronger when working together. From the opening few seconds, Pixar exerts its visual wit, the prologue culminating in an ingenious encounter between a coffee cup and water sprinkler. Near the end it all gets a bit ludicrous and unnecessarily complicated, but it does retain its remarkable pace right up until the sweetly satisfactory post-credit scene. Pixar’s unblemished reputation for savvy animated classics dipped recently with the releases Lightyear and Elemental, until Inside Out 2 came to the rescue. But Hoppers is a true original and its blend of idiosyncratic characters and imaginative storytelling is a welcome return to form for the company that brought us Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille and Turning Red – and so many more. And the animation itself just seems to get better and better, all the more so as here it is dealing with the elemental forces of fire and water. Hoppers doesn’t stint on its voice cast, either, from Jon Hamm and the late Isiah Whitlock Jr to Meryl Streep’s turn as the Butterfly Queen (to complement the Queen Ant she voiced in 2006’s The Ant Bully).
Voices of Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Lila Liu, Eduardo Franco, Aparna Nancherla, Sam Richardson, Melissa Villaseñor, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Steve Purcell, Meryl Streep, Karen Huie, Jo Spano.
Dir Daniel Chong, Pro Nicole Paradis Grindle, Screenplay Jesse Andrews, from a story by Daniel Chong and Jesse Andrews, Ph Jeremy Lasky and Ian Megibben, Pro Des Bryn Imagire, Ed Axel Geddes, Music Mark Mothersbaugh, Sound Ren Klyce.
Pixar Animation Studios-Walt Disney Studios.
104 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 6 March 2026. Cert. U.
