Movie Review: Hoppers

 

Hello hello everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome everyone to my very first Movie Review in 2026.

Well okay, I know its been three months that I wanted to get started, but I was stuck in 2025 for remaining films how desperate I was to see some of my wishful films that I want to see. But don’t worry, its all settled and lets move on, il learn my mistake next time. Anyway, what better way to kick things off for this year? (aside that I missed Markiplier’s Iron Lung, which il save it later when its available digitally) By going back to our old friend, Pixar, to gave us their new movie less than a year later after their underwhelming film, Elio.

“Hoppers” is a 2026 animated sci-fi adventure comedy film that was written/directed by Daniel Chong, produced by Nicole Paradis Grindle, and co-written by Jesse Andrews.

Back in pre-mid-2015, Daniel Chong was hired as a story artist in several studios like Pixar’s Cars 2 and Inside Out, Illumination’s The Lorax and the craptacular Free Birds. But at the same year as the release of Inside Out, he created “We Bare Bears” in 2015 to 2019, which it became a popular show back in 2010’s fascinating year in Cartoon Network. But then in December of 2020, after finishing his show and “We Bare Bears: The Movie”, he announced he came back to Pixar to building up his passion project, along with working the writer of Luca, Jesse Andrews, joined in. In their idea, they said its gonna be an inspiration from animal documentaries, but with robot animals in the wildlife with animals, but with sci-fi twist and action. Basically what they said, imagine Avatar and Mission Impossible merging together, but with wild animals for kids.

So, with all that said, will the experimental human minds into robot animals will fit in to help the wild animals, or is this feel like rocket science gone horribly wrong?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

When it comes to the plot about natures vs humanity, its actually pretty complex for its depth, but it wants to have fun from the get-go.

The movie begins from the past (cause of course) in the city Beaverton, we introduce our main protagonist, Mabel Tanaka, back in her childhood, she wants to bringing wild animals from her school for free will, but not before she got caught and scolded from her school, this is mainly due to she likes to spend time with her grandma in her home located at nearby the forest glade, in order to be calm and watch and feel the ambiance and peaceful to see the wild animals like beavers. Fast forward to the present time, she lives in her grandma’s home to stay with her childhood glade after her grandma sadly passed away. But the downside is that she’ll never get to see her familiar wild animals, this is due to the mayor of Beaverton named Jerry Generazzo, where his goal is to take down the glade for the plan of Freeway, much to both dismay and disgust from Mabel that she became not just a nature appreciation, but also activist in attempt to have a petition to take down the Freeway, but didn’t get any support to everyone in Beaverton, especially her college studies has been draining that she got disapproved to biology professor Dr. Sam Fairfax. It wasn’t until Mabel sees a beaver in the forest, but it goes into the university from the secret room, revealing that Dr. Sam and her colleagues are experimenting their new technology called “Hoppers” where they created a robot of a wild animal to putting human’s mind into the replica of wild animal. But after gets caught and learned about the project, Mabel saw this as an opportunity to put herself into the experiment to “hops” her mind into the same robot beaver for her escape and eventually communicating wild animals to learning what they’re doing. Its up to Mabel, in a robot beaver, to find the way to save the wildlife (mainly her childhood glade) against the Freeway, as long it doesn’t have to be a death threat against either humanity or animals.

At first, it makes you think its another one of those nature vs humans or technology story, its similar plot as the aforementioned Avatar as Chong said during the making of this movie, which is easily understandable, but it has a pretty nice execution to add more depth, like thought-provoking story, the messages, and even the humors (You take notes, James Cameron, huh? Huh??). The message is no stranger that its all about be reasonable and protect the wildlife in the name of peace against human consumption like the setup of Freeway, though its not the first time we’ve heard about plot about campaign against the Freeway, like say, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. Its quite of big deal since we’ve seen plenty of forest has been torn down for not just freeway, but also homes like condos and job apartments like stores, restaurants and others, much to dismay to the wild animals in the forest. Sure, the similar plot of Avatar is there, but again, at least it has a nice execution for creating robot animals with human consciousness to save wildlife rather than going on war, not to mention that’s all about be peaceful to cancel without posing a threat of assassination on the mayor, which of course, there is a plot twist villain, which is another plot twist cliché, but has good kind of twist, but I won’t give further details from SPOILERS. As for the humors, I will say, the humors of this movie is chuckle worthy like how King George demonstrate the world building of the wildlife that he rules with his delivery, the incoming timing with the worm getting eaten, even constant argument between Mabel and Jerry between saving nature and Freeway (at least its a showcase joke, kind of like Family guy), which is common, but at least they didn’t take it seriously. Not to mention with the humors is also being self-aware from either referencing to the aforementioned Avatar (because Duh), how the wildlife works and the unlikely communication between humans and animals. However, if there’s a problem for this movie is the first act, the movie just starts out rather rushed for Mabel’s origin story before we’re going to both against Freeway and the Hoppers experiment, its just like the same problem as Zootopia 2’s first act.

While the first act is rather a rocky start, but the rest gets better for the thought-provoking plots, the messages, an understandable similar plot with good executions and a chuckle worthy humors.

The Animation

The movie’s budget costed $150M, which is yet another Pixar’s low budget film much like Elio. But unlike last year, I noticed the setup for Pixar to having two movies in a year unlike last year, they treated Hoppers as an appetizer, while the upcoming Toy Story 5 is the equivalent of the main dish. But to be fair, for low-budget appetizer, at least it looks pretty nice.

For starter, the background for taking place both the city like Beaverton and the forest are… Dare I say, pretty average, they’re just standard setting as what you expect. But it doesn’t mean its boringly average, they did their best for some creative setting like the home of council in the dam, the quality and even the ambiance when Mabel wants to relax in her forest glade.

For the designs, the humans are also standard for either average or some cartoony designs, but at least I can give an appreciation that, either be normal or go crazy when the humor kicks in based on either the action scenes or the delivery. But the wild animals on the other hands, they’re actually pretty good and cute, sure the design may or may not look real, but they’re so adorable for how round and colorful they are, especially with some details. Its as if the designs of We Bare Bears comes to life in CG, I know its weird thing to describe, but what do you expect for a movie being directed by the guy who gave us a memorable show about the bears in CN.

But I think the best part for the designs in this movie, are the animals expression and the communication based on different perspective. When we’re in human, the animals expression are normal like black dot eyes or typical animal noises, its simple and kind of realistic. But once we’re hoping into robot animal, this is where the animals get their true colors of their expression with cartoon eyes and talk like humans. At first for the latter, I was confused how’s that work, but its only if we’re transported human conscious into robot animal for communication, which it would make sense, unless there’s a missing tool that we can translate from animal language outside of animal replicant. It may not be as highly revolution, but il give credit for their creativity.

As for the animation, like I mentioned for the story, it starts out slow that the animation are good and standard, but once we get to the second act and the climax, boy it gets interesting to have a montage of demonstrating wild animals in the forest, the building dam with beavers while playing “Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy (gotta love the 80s song to building a dam with beavers, eh?), and of course, the climatic chase in the risk of death or worse, having a robot animal go “BOOM!” when crashing (Jeez, what kind of machine it contains?).

Despite the background is average at best, but its the animation and the designs are the best part of animation for how they crafted and the creativity from different perspectives.

The Characters

While the writing of the story is pretty good, we expecting the characters could be memorable too? Well, I think so, both how they developed and a fun voice performances.

Lets start off with our main protagonist, Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda), a Japanese-American animal lover and college student who likes live with Glade for not just seeing the animals in the forest, but also due to her personal history from her beloved grandma, making her becoming rebellious against Mayor Jerry to prevent the planning Freeway. I find her to be pretty fascinating character and somewhat relatable, we can feel that we want to save something important from our beloved grandparents from our childhood without ruined by city consumption or using violence as the answer from the councils. Not only she’s somewhat relatable that we want to keep something safe due to personal history and deep meaning, but she’s quite curious, enjoyable, energetic and caring with the animals that I find her quite possibly memorable, and Piper kicks ass her performance in energy.

Next up, we have King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan), the monarch of the beavers and the King of Mammals who shows Mabel about the building in the forest who sees himself as an optimistic to follow the set of pond rules to the animals in the forest, especially for being a plot development to teach Mabel about the whole forest, the animals, the aforementioned pond rules and providing lessons about trusts. Though he can be a flawed king when it comes to handling or delivering the rules, but he does have a nice chemistry with Mabel to understand about the forest and the issue about the upcoming freeway, even if he’s gotta realizing this due to being blocked by a fake tree with possibly a high pitch frequency. Though he’s nowhere perfect to be the king, but at least he’s kind, optimistic and also enjoyable to gives us the lesson and plot convenience in order to understand why Mabel wants her Glade in peace with beavers, and I think Bob did a nice work of his performance.

Next we have Jerry Generazzo (played by Jon Hamm, aka Sentinel Prime from Transformers One), the mayor of Beaverton for his plan to building the freeway for reelection. You may think that he must be the main antagonist of this movie for his plan of freeway without Mabel’s consent for placed on her glade due to her personal history with her beloved grandma. I mean okay, he maybe villainous that, kinda like mayors, senators or politicians, he always think he’s a perfect mayor that he’s in the right with everyone support him, while also being oblivious about the cause based on, again, Mabel’s protection her glade for the sake of the wild animals. Basically, he’s kind of like the human version of Sentinel Prime, they’re both similar how they’re written, but the difference is, while Sentinel is self-proclaimed hero in Cybertron without acknowledging the major problem for being the leader of Iacon from the dark secret, Jerry on the other hand is, like leaders in towns, he chooses to extending Beaverton with freeway, while being oblivious about the cause to the forest and animals. I guess its no wonder why I saw a couple of posts that lot of people compared both Jerry and Sentinel Prime for similarities, not just for their setup, but also they’re both voiced by Jon Hamm. But to his credit, at least Jon did a good work of his role too, even if we though he’s the main villain, but not exactly, without SPOILERS.

After that, we have Dr. Sam Fairfax (voiced by Kathy Najimy), the biology professor in Beaverton University that she and her colleagues secretly experimenting the hopping technology. Like George, she also gave us plot convenience about this experiment that made Mabel as an opportunity to transfer her consciousness into robot beaver for her rebellious plan to save her glade, despite even if this is something that Dr. Sam is gotta understand about Mabel’s plan rather than overprotecting the project. Though il give credit about this experiment, but the execution is rather… flawed to explaining this, but then again, its due to rocky in the first act in the movie. Im not saying Kathy is bad, she did a nice work of her role, but its just some writing part her is kind of weak, even if she’s rather too protective for this project.

And finally, there’s the insect royal family, like The Queen (surprisingly voiced by Meryl Streep) and her son, Titus (voiced by Dave Franco), like George, they’re the council for which animal kinds, specifically, their rule for the insects. But unlike George, they’re more tyranny for their decision, mainly if its not easy to stop the humans, The Queen or Titus are choosing violence as the answer to “squish” humans, which is their term to KILL to believe animals and insects will be the top of the food chain. I know its easily predictable about The Queen and Titus, but again, not gonna give a spoiler warning whatever happens further. While Dave Franco did a surprising work of his role, along with Eman Abdul-Razzak as the younger version of Titus. But of course, Meryl Streep is an unusual pick for this role, but she did a good job as a the most recognizable actress for many ages.

As for the rest, there not much else to say, lot of them are either for plot purposes or for good humors, there's Loaf (voiced by Eduardo Franco) another beaver, despite being sluggish, but thankfully being loyal with other animals, Tom Lizard (voiced by Tom Law) is a lizard who wants to have fun rather than into drama (and somehow became viral), Ellen (voiced by Melissa Villaseñor) is a menacing bear, but just want to follow the pond rules, because she's a predator, and Nisha and Conner (voiced by Aparna Nancherla and Sam Richardson) are Dr. Sam's colleagues.

I find the voice acting are pretty good in the movie, while some characters are flawed, but i find some are enjoyable and probably memorable in this film how they're nicely written and delivered.

And now for my Final Opinion of this film.

Overall, Hoppers is actually a pretty good film to start in my experience of movies in 2026.

The animation looks great, even for being an appetizer, it has great characters, nicely done writing, the story good, the voice acting are enjoyable, it has a nice message what this movie is about.

Sure, there are some flaws like the first act was good, but rather slow, some character could've understand about the issue and the setting is too standard.

Even with the flaws, its an enjoyable film from Pixar, like probably better original Pixar film than Ellio. If you're a supporter of animals and a fan of Pixar, i'd say this out, i considered a recommended film to watch. Cause you'll have a fun time to see it like i do.

For my rating, im gonna give this one an 8.5/10.

Anyway, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.