Has anyone felt that Pixar has gotten just a bit too safe these days? I don’t know whether it’s because their original movies are nowhere near as memorable as their classics, or because of their dependence of sequels to stay relevant, but even original stuff with truly stunning conceptual ideas such as Soul or Elemental seem to be brushed aside in favour of the next adventure for Woody, Buzz and Co. The innovation is certainly still there (movies about romances between fire and water don’t come along every day), but where’s the to just go for broke, break some rules and just relentlessly entertain?
At first glance, Hopper immediately feels like Pixar at half strength. For a start, the trailers made it seem like a raucous, crazy comedy (which it is), that has a plot that’s recycled sizable elements from both Avatar and Dreamworks’ Over The Hedge (also true), but we decry yet another talking animal movie that’s trying to survive in the shadow of Zootopia, Hoppers has a rather sizable secret weapon. It’s goddamn hilarious.
Ever since she was a child, the fiery tempered Mabel Tanaka has always furiously fought for the rights of animals, but when it became obvious that she was becoming something of a problem child she was farmed off to spend time with her grandmother who seemed to figure out the best way to calm her down. Sitting silently on a rock, observing the beauty of nature in a picturesque glade, it created a bond between Mabel and her grandparent, but by the age of nineteen, she’s become a full-fledged activist who lets her passions interfere with her biology studies just so she can argue with scrupules-free mayor, Jerry Generazzo about his latest schemes.
However, when a proposed freeway diversion threatens the existence of her glade, Mabel doubles-down to activism town and tries all manner of tricks to slow the inevitable destruction, but when she discovers that all the beavers have left the glade anyway, it seems like her mission has failed before it’s even begun. Or, at least it would have if she hadn’t made something of a jaw-dropping discovery. It seems that her biology professor, Dr. Samantha Fairfax, has managed to create a scientific breakthrough in the form of “Hoppers”, an invention that allows someone to link their brainwaves to a realistic, robotic beaver and actually infiltrate nature as one of their own.
Giddy by the prospect of beavering up and saving the glen from within, Mabel breaks in and “Hops” into the animatronic animal in order to convince a beaver to return to the glen and restore the habitat, thus thwarting Jerry’s plans. However, after getting over the dizzy excitement of being able to communicate with wildlife, Mabel soon discovers that animals have laws and rules too and her continued pushing against the boundaries of said decrees could cause terrible things to happen as the balance of power in the animal kingdom shifts wildly.
Pixar movies have always been funny – you can’t have that innate warmth the studio deploys without it – but very rarely does it feel that those artistic keyboard tappers are actively trying to make an actual comedy. Toy Story, The Incredibles, Wall•E, Finding Nemo – all of these films are objectively hilarious, but you feel that the humour is just all part of the process to win you over hook, line and sinker as it probes the higher brain functions to make you care more about a toy cowboy than you would about your first-born child. However, with Hoppers, director Daniel Chong seems to be lunging for the funny bone first and foremost – which is a relief because with its central activism message, there could have been a danger that Hoppers could have drowned in the depths of its own preachiness. However, armed with one of Pixar’s funniest, most knowing scripts in ages, the movie prioritises laughs first while ensuring that the other stuff comes organically.
In fact, visually speaking, Chong seems to have taken a few cues from Turning Red’s Domee Shi by choosing to merge an anime style into that usual, lush, Pixar gloss and it fits the more out of control feel that the film comes with. In fact, Hoppers has more deranged energy than the last couple of animated movies combined and it’s this unrestrained – but very self-aware – humour that makes the film move like lightning and had me legitimately throw my head back and laugh for what feels the first time in ages. While the film takes a little while to properly cycle up to full-speed, the film is appropriately Pixar-esque when it comes to building character, story and plot up enough to properly sell the lunacy that’s about to happen – but while titles like Elio took their time to set everything up and then didn’t really slip into a higher gear to reach that humorous crescendo, once Hoppers is done fully explaining its surprisingly dense universe, all bets are off when it comes to where the film goes and I was genuinely thrilled to see some of the decidedly effed-up places it’s chooses to go.
There’s actually an endearing feel of Back To The Future here as an impressionable, headstrong teen gets their excitable hands on some wonder tech and subsequently causes issues rhat eventually snowball into a panic inducing crisis that goes to some pretty weird places – but like Robert Zemeckis’ opus, Hopper takes the correct amount of time building everything up before cycling up into full blown hysteria. The animal kingdom that Mabel stumbles upon is full of amicable types who, due to the “Pond Rules”, get daily exercise classes from their positive-minded ruler, King George and have no problems being part of the food chain, but once our well-meaning, but brassy heroine starts sticking her newly obtained, beaver nose into animal affairs. From here, Hoppers is free to go fully madcap, throwing in ever more exaggerated disasters to fully embrace the insanity of it all. Before you know it, we’ve left the word of a typical, cutesy, anthropomorphic animal movie into a flick that casually throws in accidental regicide, genocidal catapillars, robot doubles and an attempted hit of the life of Mayor Jerry (John Hamm on an enjoyable smarm offencive) that involves the hysterically illogical use of a great white shark named Diane. However, despite the fact that the film frequently steps into U certificate body horror more than even Elio did (fake Jerry is legitimate nightmare fuel), Pixar realises that at no matter how far into zany territory the film forges through, it always ensures it always has a direct route to hand to get things into heartwarming territory when the film demands it. In fact, the fact that Hoppers can switch almost seamlessly to genuine, heart-felt, tear-jerking moments after witnessing such sights as a caterpillar uttering comic book villain diatribes and multiple act of attempted murder by cute, fluffy animals.
While some Pixar purists may feel that Daniel Chong veers too far into broad, cartoon craziness and that Hoppers often feels more Cartoon Network than Pixar, the result is honestly the most memorable thing the studio has made in ages. Enough screaming and silly faces for the kids, some impressive lurches into jet black comedy for the adults and a save-the-planet message that fully recognises how irritating activists can be? Hop to it audiences.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 