Hoppers – Review

Release Date – 6th March 2026, Cert – U, Run-time – 1 hour 44 minutes, Director – Daniel Chong

19-year-old Mabel (Piper Curda) wants to protect a peaceful glade from a highway construction, when her mind is put into a beaver’s body she leads the animals to rebel, but could be creating more problems for humans.

It hasn’t been that long since the likes of Soul and Turning Red, or even Inside Out 2, but when a studio as notable as Pixar has just one stumble (I was not the biggest fan of Elio’s overstretched busyness) it can sometimes feel a while since a film of theirs hit, especially an original one. Hoppers feels like the studio simply having fun with an idea, and making a rather entertaining film whilst doing so.

Much of this comes from the sparkiness of rebellious 19-year-old Mabel (Piper Curda), intent on protecting the peaceful glade where she spent much of her childhood with her grandmother (Karen Huie) from becoming a construction site for a new highway, led by popular city mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm). The glade has been a place of calm for Mabel for many years, having become almost therapeutic to observe the wildlife there when stressed or angry – the opening scene sees young Mabel (Lila Liu) trying to save class pets in her backpack and causing chaos when trying to escape from teachers. She’s an energetic character, and even more so when she discovers technology her university professor (Kathy Najimy) has created which allows her consciousness to be put into a robot beaver.

From here she excitedly explores the animal world, guided by beaver King George (Bobby Moynihan), and tries to get them to return to the glade to prevent construction. However, her efforts quickly lead to grown tensions between humans and animals, with the formers lives at risk. There’s plenty of fun to be had when this latter point develops – including a wonderfully silly moment involving a shark – helping to see things through as they start to feel like they’re trying to find their way towards an ending rather than knowing fully what that route is.

It means that the film may feel about 10 minutes too long, with some ideas being dealt with separately rather than together, but there’s still a good number of chuckles to be found along the way. Generally, the humour of Hoppers is what helps to see it through, alongside those brief moments of emotion that remind us of Mabel’s relationship with her grandmother – highlight moments in the film, alongside the aforementioned shark which strikes a very different tone. Much of this humour comes from the supporting characters and the ways in which they play into the narrative. An animal council with figures representing the likes of mammals, serpents, birds, insects (Meryl Streep making an appearance), fish, etc feels less thrown in and notably formulaic than in Elio and while not the strongest element of Hoppers manages to have enough backing behind it to create a handful more antagonists for Mabel, George and co to face.

It’s around the introduction of these characters that things start to gradually develop in a more step-by-step way, but they’re at least given a push by the narrative that leads to a number of likable sequences which makes the most of both the animal world, and the technology that put Mabel into this situation in the first place. You can feel the creatives having fun with the ideas at hand which boosts the entertainment factor and makes for a simply enjoyable film that believes in its characters. One that might not have as much of a rebellious attitude as its lead character, but matches her energy on first taking on beaver form and continuing that until the end. This may not quite be the studio at their strongest, but it’s another slice of entertaining animation that they still manage to do rather well indeed.

While it might start to deal with its matters in a very step-by-step way there’s plenty of spark within Hoppers to see it through, helped by a good dose of successful humour from the world and supporting characters around the likably propulsive lead.