Have you seen the shouting lizard trending on social media recently? That’s Tom from Disney’s Pixar’s new film Hoppers. Hoppers was released in the UK on March 6th. Hoppers released on opening weekend with 88 million at the box office worldwide, the biggest opening for an animated film since Coco in 2017. The film launched amid some critics saying parts of it were AI-generated, but the studio has denied the claims.
Hoppers revolves around a teenager named Mabel who uses technology to hop into a robot beaver in order to stop her city from destroying her local animal habitats for new construction. The beginning of the movie spends a decent amount of time explaining why Mabel is so attached to her local habitat and the relationship between her and her now-deceased grandmother, who introduced Mabel to her love of nature. The film’s start is very heartwarming, and it hooks you in by quickly introducing the secondary antagonist, Jerry, the mayor pushing to have the habitats destroyed. After Mabel accidentally “hops” into the robot beaver, she tries to rally the wildlife to return to their homes to stop construction. In doing this, she accidentally rallies the animals to “squish” Jerry, which leads to a very funny, over-the-top chase scene with a flying shark trying to kill the mayor. At the conclusion of the film, Jerry changes his ways, stops the highway plans, and the habitat is saved.
Firstly, I’ll start with the positives of this film. It was animated beautifully, and it doesn’t look like AI-generated art. The humour in the film was well-balanced, with something for both adults and children to laugh at. The film’s beginning was very emotional and beautifully open about the relationship between grandmother and grandchild. I think Pixar nailed a heartwarming opening to captivate viewers. The bittersweet ending was something I enjoyed in the film, where Mabel can still hang out with her animal friends, but can’t understand them because she can’t use the hoppers’ technology anymore . I think this works because it shows throughout the entire movie that the hoppers’ technology is actually harmful, as it disrupts the wildlife, so keeping it wouldn’t make sense for Mabel’s character.
For the negatives of this film, it felt disjointed at times, for example, going from a sad scene where a son watches his mother be accidentally killed to an over-the-top and funny chase scene. There were also elements of horror that seemed very unexpected for how the movie was represented in its trailer. When I went to see this movie, there were younger kids crying at the horror elements. The emotional elements in this feel also seem rushed, and the film completely loses the grounded emotional heart it had in the first act.
Overall, this film is a 6/10 if you don’t take it seriously and aren’t expecting an emotional movie from Pixar like Coco. I wouldn’t recommend this film to families with easily spooked or sensitive children, considering the disjointed horror elements. For a teen or young adult, the film is perfect background noise and will give you a laugh.