Movie Review: Hoppers

Movie Review: Hoppers                                                                                           3-7-26

Hoppers is about a 19-year-old Japanese-American girl named Mabel Tanaka, who loves animals but hates Mayor Jerry who plans on destroying the local pond to make room for a freeway. At Mabel's collage, the local scientists have created a new software called Hoppers, in which your brain can be transferred into a robot animal lookalike in order to survey the local wildlife. Mabel uses Hopping technology to transfer her brain into a robot Beaver, where she meets the beaver king George. Now, Mabel must work with the other animals, including a bear named Ellen, a lizard named Tom, and another beaver named Loaf, in order to save their home.

Hoppers is Pixar's best original film since Coco (And I mean it this time!) with a story that gets you immersed into Beaverton, high quality character animation that is Pixar's trademark, tons of fun Easter Eggs, the most surprising twists in an animated film since Zootopia 1, and engaging characters.

Hoppers has two major milestones for Pixar: It's the company's seventh original movie of the 2020s, and their seventh film to have a female protagonist. Speaking of whom, Mabel Tanaka is a great character, even if you've seen this archetype before. She loves animals and will do whatever it takes protect them, whether it's trying to foil Jerry's plans or even freeing the animals from the local school. Just like Flik, Miguel Rivera, and Elio Solis before her, Mabel lies to the pond animals about being a real beaver, and without giving away spoilers, this comes back to bite Mabel in the tail later. Also, am I the only one who thinks Mabel has ADHD?

Mabel after saving Loaf from getting eaten by Ellen.

If I were to nitpick one thing, however, I find it confusing that Mabel's parents aren't around at her house, yet she's still attending college and doing poorly in classes. Do Mabel's parents even know what their daughter has been up to?

"Guys, this is like Avatar!"

Regardless, Hoppers is still an excellent movie to watch this Spring. I strongly recommend seeing it in theaters, especially after what happened with Elio. Besides, there's not much out there as I'm typing this.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Plus what Tom has to say