“It’s hard to be mad when you feel like you’re part of something big”
After last year’s Elio failed to reach the show-stopping success of its predecessor, Inside Out 2, Pixar have taken a different approach for 2026, with a two-pronged lineup of releases. Toy Story 5 will be with us come June, promising massive returns for the company (if it’s anything like the fourth instalment, it’ll be massively lambasted up to the day of its release before we’re all baffled by its quality and the seemingly indestructible nature of that franchise), but in the meantime, in-between time, we’ve got all the fun of a brand new entry into the Pixar Canon in the form of Hoppers with the financial safety blanket of the prestige sequel still waiting in the wings.
The teen conservationist Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) spars off against the Mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm) who is set on destroying the peaceful glade on the outskirts of town where her late grandmother first introduced her to the beauty of nature.
As representatives standing at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to preserving the natural world, these two certainly have a history – every planned byway blocked and debated by way of our scrappy young hero – and the pair’s bickering runs as a funny through-line.
Hamm lends an overconfident, sleazy edge to the role, fitting nicely as a money-loving politician while Curda gives Mabel bags and bags of energy, firing off jokes at a rapid pace. It occasionally feels like too much of a good thing – Hoppers as a whole has a sense of hyperactivity to it that feels more in keeping with some of the other big animation studios – but there came a point where I was invested enough in the story and Mabel’s quest to let those qualms slide.
That central journey is one that’s larger than life, but from a studio whose past features include talking fish, domestic superheroes and an entire society of scream-stealing monsters, that’s okay. After stumbling across her professor’s secret project one night, our protagonist finds herself, as you do, trapped in the body of an animatronic beaver. It’s an old trick of Dr. Fairfax’s; a way of projecting yourself into animal form. Through some miracle of science we can ‘Hop’ into an animatronic body to better understand the ecosystem and communicate with your fellow man…er, beaver.
Commendably, the film makes no attempt to properly explain how this tech could possibly work – that would only bog things down – but as a shorthand, Mabel is quick to draw parallels to Avatar before being assured by the Doc (who hates to be called Doc) that it’s really nothing like that. Whatever you say, Disney. We believe you.
There’s an air of familiarity to a lot of the film’s beats, but I was impressed by Hoppers’ ability to wear its influences and inspirations on its sleeve with pride. Given the body-hopping narrative of a scientist becoming one with the locals to thwart the advances of a destructive, capitalist force, there really is a lot of Avatar at play here, but it’s important to remember that Avatar itself has faced criticism for being unoriginal since the original in 2008. I think that speaks to a passion to tell this kind of story again and again rather than being uninspired.
As we neared the halfway mark, I felt a little underwhelmed by the film. It feels like something of a tough sell compared to some of the more classic Pixar movies, which had the benefit of a much clearer playing field. With every release, there’s a sense of the parameters narrowing for the next offering. ‘What if toys came to life?’ is perhaps the perfect one-sentence pitch for a kids movie but thirty years on, Pixar seems to be struggling somewhat to create out-and-out classics in the same way (Turning Red and Elio both felt thoroughly enjoyable while they were on, but not exactly memorable).
The trailers for Hoppers place a lot of focus on the first half of the movie, with Mabel discovering everything there is to know about life as an animal and the natural order in place (‘When you gotta eat, eat’ says a cheery King George, monarch of all mammals, as a worm is carried off by a bird mid-sentence) and I felt as though I’d seen all the best jokes on offer here ahead of actually seeing the film.
Things take a surprisingly promising turn for the better in the second half, however, which begins with a grand council of all the local animals, complete with a regally retributive butterfly queen played by Meryl Streep and her remarkably bloodthirsty prince Titus, a cackling caterpillar. I don’t want to give anything away, but it takes an otherwise by-the-numbers Pixar entry and gives it some much-needed flair and fun. It doesn’t all work – there’s the sense that it could’ve done with another draft just to set the tone right, as things go to some oddly dark places – but it incorporates the central tech behind Mabel’s hopping nicely and things build to an emotional if slightly muddled conclusion.
Though it doesn’t have the soaring heights of their better-known work, Hoppers has an enjoyably quirky spirit and enthusiasm, both characterised by its central female protagonist and rabble of eccentric animal compani
ons. I’d encourage you to go into it with as little knowledge as possible to get the most out of it – if you’ve yet to see the trailer, don’t. It builds on a slightly shaky first act into an enjoyably madcap ride through Beaverton and finds a place for itself among Pixar’s recent offerings with its own zany flair, rocketing towards a misty-eyed finale that reminds us of this company’s strangely powerful ability to get its endings just right.
BBFC: Rated U for very mild threat, violence, upsetting scenes, rude humour, language.
Hoppers is in cinemas from 6 March
