‘Hoppers’ is a return to Pixar’s more playful side

“Hoppers”
PG | 104 minutes
Director: Daniel Chong
Writers: Daniel Chong, Jesse Andrews, Jordan Harrison
Stars: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm

With the likes of “GOAT,” “Zootopia 2” and the ongoing “Into the Spider-Verse” franchise, kids are eating good when it comes to feature-length animation. And “Hoppers” is no different, giving the kind of movie you enjoy from the first frame to the final credit. It reaches deep into Pixar’s established toolkit to make you chuckle, care, connect and (of course) cry. It is a return to form for the studio’s more playful side, blending a hysterically insane premise with a grounded heart that feels both earnest and wonderfully weird.

Directed by Daniel Chong — best known for the delightfully charming “We Bare Bears” — the movies centers on Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), a young environmentalist caught in that specific, uncomfortable post-college-grad limbo. Remember the feeling? After spending years being told you’re special and likely to change the world, you realize the world isn’t actually waiting for your arrival. Mabel is currently fighting a losing battle against Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm), who plans to pave over her late grandmother’s beloved glade for a freeway expansion. The goal? Cutting a local commute by nearly 5 whole minutes.

Idealism is quickly shattered by indifference as Mable discovers that making an impact requires access, structure and influence that many young adults don’t possess. 

This is where the film’s “Avatar” of it all comes into play. 

Mabel stumbles upon a secret project at her university where scientists have figured out how to transfer a human consciousness into hyper-realistic robotic animals. While the scientists insist it’s “nothing like Avatar,” it’s very much like Avatar — just with more fur, less blue kitty cats, and a significantly higher ratio of beaver-based slapstick.

Mabel is thrust into the wild, where she discovers that the animal kingdom isn’t just a collection of critters but a complex monarchical hierarchy. There are kings or queens for the mammals, the fish, the insects, the birds, the amphibians and the reptiles, each sporting their own tiny gold crowns. Mabel quickly befriends King George (Bobby Moynihan), the mammal king who operates under a surprisingly bleak set of “Pond Rules” — a philosophy built on the casual acceptance of being eaten or squished. You know, “the circle of life.” 

By depicting nature with a darkly comedic tone, the world of “Hoppers” feels hilariously bleak for all the right reasons. But don’t let the tiny crowns and fluffy tails fool you; this movie isn’t afraid to get dark. There is a shocking moment about halfway through when a major character is brutally dispatched. There is no slow, swelling orchestra; just a sudden, quiet departure that leaves the characters (and the audience) in a state of genuine shock. From there, it gets weirder, even a bit scarier. A moment of body-horror during a villainous turn by Titus (Dave Franco), an insect-to-human hopped antagonist who “rips” through a synthetic human skin is particularly terrifying. It is risky, bold and exactly the kind of creative swing we’ve been missing from Pixar’s original works.

Between the shocks, “Hoppers” remains Pixar’s funniest film in a decade. It is peppered with quick, “meme-esque” humor and throwaway gags that feel tailor-made for Gen Alpha. A standout sequence involves the animals communicating with humans using a text-to-speech app and emojis on a smartphone; it’s a gag that works in isolation but also smartly reinforces the film’s themes of the communication gap between humanity and the natural world.

Technically, the animation is as stunning as we’ve come to expect. Not only does it surprise and delight, but it actually advances the plot. The film delineates between when an animal is understood by Mabel and when it is not. When they aren’t “in the loop,” they look a bit more basic — more like the background animals of “Open Season.” But when we get close, the furs and surfaces are so rich you can practically feel them through the screen.

As we look toward the future, “Hoppers” stands as a vital reminder that Pixar can still be “spiky” enough to carve out its own niche. It’s a cautionary, compassionate tale that whether we are arrogant politicians or beaver-bodied students, we all exist on this planet together. Kids will have a blast with the slapstick, while adults will find themselves back and forth between laughing and questioning how a kids’ movie got this weird.