3 min readMar 6, 2026 02:33 PM IST
Hoppers movie review: The hopper doth hop too much. This latest Pixar animation is a frenzied exploration of an idea that could have been told ever so simply, with not much humour or a catchy song or two to lift it.
But what are humans for, than to complicate what animals know so simply: that co-existence is possible, that co-existence is essential, and that co-existence is elementary.
We get to this rule of nature by a roundabout manner which starts, like always, with a girl who is lonely and a misfit (Mabel, voiced by Curda), who finds one friendly and understanding adult (her grandmother) to be herself.
Mabel grows up loving animals and particularly the glade where she visited with her grandmother. But now she is 19, the grandmother is dead, and her town Beaverton needs a beltway through the jungle to cut distances and time. The development lobby is steered by Beaverton’s very charismatic (but also surprisingly accessible) Mayor, Jerry (Hamm).
When Mabel takes Jerry on, as she has done over countless other projects over the years, he points out that the animals are no longer around in the glade. It’s surprising that it takes Jerry to tell her that, but yeah, Mabel realises Jerry is telling the truth.
And so to get the animals back, she enters the body of a robotic beaver, developed by her professor in college, Dr Sam (Njimy), as part of a secret experiment. Sam tells Mabel that beavers are a keystone species and, if she can get one to return and settle in the glade again, it will do its magic, dam the waters and create a pond. And, bingo, the animals will return.
Of course, once Mabel is in the jungle, things don’t happen according to plan. Rather in the midst of all that’s happening, it’s hard to keep track of what that plan is.
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There is a lazy beaver, a king beaver who is ruler of the mammal world (minus the humans that is), then lots of kings of, respectively, the fish world, the bird world, the snake world, the frog world and, most majestically of all, the insect world. Streep is there briefly in the royal splendour of a butterfly, and nails it.
Hoppers Movie Trailer:
More things happen, and Mabel realises that trying to mess with the animal world isn’t as simple as humans have always thought it is.
Not surprisingly, she makes amends. Busy as a beaver, she is about it, but somewhere along all that digging, the film loses sight of its central message. Yes, animals and humans can find a way to live and let live, but how many beltways are we ready to give up?
Hoppers movie Director: Daniel Chong
Hoppers Voice Cast: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Meryl Streep
Hoppers Movie Rating: 2.5 stars
