Hoppers (2026) - 7/10

I’ve not watched a Pixar film in a while, really since my kids grew up, but for some reason Hoppers called out to me. Maybe because I’m an animal person and the premise here is the ability to not only find out if our furry friends are intelligent (or course they are), but to be able to communicate with them. Mabel (Piper Curda) gets it. She’s an animal person too. Inspired by her nature loving grandma, she’s grown into a staunch animal rights advocate, much to the annoyance of the authorities and mostly the local mayor (John Hamm). He wants to build a new highway, right through a once beautiful glade that’s special to Mabel. Once special, its wildlife have moved on with all the construction, but Mabel has a plan. She just needs the beavers to return, bring the glade back to life and thwart the developers. Whilst staking out the glade trying to entice said cuddly comrade, she stumbles across one such, but this is no ordinary beaver! It’s a robot, built by her tutor, Dr Sam (Kathy Najimy), who’s created an empty beaver vessel into which a human can inhabit or hop and sure enough, Mabel soon finds herself undercover in the body of a beaver and thrown deep into a utopian society presided over by another beaver, King George (Bobby Moynihan). Cue tons of fluffy fun, with musical montages of dam building and bears talking to snakes. Mabel thinks she’s there to save the animals, but of course she has much to learn and instead finds herself inciting all out war. It does get a little muddled, but it looks as lovely as you’d expect from Pixar and all the animals are super cute, even Daisy, the contract killing shark. There’s some genuine peril here too, not all animals you see are cute and friendly. Some are evil and power hungry (like humans) and try to turn the technology to their own gain, evoking many a horror thriller from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers to Scanners. It’s not a Pixar classic. There’s many flaws, but it’s a lot of fun, it keeps its moral message front and centre and it certainly pulls on the heart strings. I’m still wondering what my dog is really thinking though.

7/10