‘Hoppers’ REVIEW: Wild, zany fun with a heart
‘Hoppers’ REVIEW: Wild, zany fun with a heart
I’ve always been an animal lover. I grew up on Steve Irwin, had pin badges from WWF petitions I signed, and was — actually, am still a horse girl. So when I first saw the trailer, I was intrigued. Avatar, but make it beavers? Sign me up! And I liked how fun and expressive the characters looked, even within the Disney mold.
Daniel Chong’s Hoppers follows the story of Mabel, a college student with anger issues who’s desperately trying to save a forest glade that meant a lot to her and her grandmother. She clashes with the mayor of Beaverton City, who is trying to build a highway over the glade, displacing the animals who live there. When Mabel accidentally stumbles upon a technology that lets her hop into the body of a beaver, she finds a new way to help save her beloved glade.
Piper Curda as the voice of Mabel | Still courtesy of Disney
Hoppers is… weird. But I think its weirdness is why the film works. It leans all the way into the zany misadventures one can have in both the human world and the animal world. In a way, it’s very reminiscent of Daniel Chong’s previous work, We Bare Bears, and the way that showed off both human relationships and the bear brothers’ relationship with each other. Similarly, we get to see Mabel’s relationship with the different humans in her life, and later on, her relationship with other animals when she’s in the body of a robot beaver.
I particularly loved her relationships with her grandmother and her beaver friend, King George. They both play a big role in helping Mabel learn important lessons in the film. Her relationship with her grandmother made me very emotional as someone who lost a grandmother during the time of the pandemic. She teaches Mabel about how nature can calm us and make us feel connected to bigger things. This lesson comes back when Mabel meets King George, who is a kind, openhearted beaver who believes and trusts in the best of animals and humans alike. George only wants peace and cohabitation between humans and animals, and doesn’t like the idea of pushing one down to benefit the other.
Throughout the film, Mabel’s rallying cry of “Am I the only one who cares?” hits home, given the environmental concerns we are currently facing. On AI use alone, we have been warned that we are in danger of running out of clean water, people continue to use AI to generate warped, unfunny videos and steal art from artists. As someone who sees how commonplace AI usage has become, I have the same feeling. A feeling of dread, panic, and anger that it seems like I can’t do anything significant about it. This kind of anger is what drives Mabel to urge the forest animals towards taking back the glade from the humans, which snowballs into the animals wishing to “squish” them instead.
Melissa Villasenor as the voice of Ellen Bear, Eduardo Franco as the voice of Loaf, Piper Curda as the voice of Mabel, Bobby Moynihan as the voice of King George | Still courtesy of Disney
The solution turns out to be simple: cooperation between the humans and the animals. I actually mildly disliked this choice as it comes across as less radical, but I understood why this was the choice made for this film. It’s Disney, after all. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the emphasis on community building and the importance of coming together to fight for a common goal. Mabel doesn’t have to do it alone, and no one else should either. It’s important for us as humans to care, not just about what we want but what’s important for the communities we’re a part of. We are all interconnected, whether we like it or realize it or not.
Hoppers is an absurd, zany, wild ride that charmed me from start to finish. The cast of animal characters is incredibly charming, and there are even jokes in this film that made the audience I was part of gasp out loud. It’s weird, and fun, and worth a watch to remind us how beautiful our world could be if only all of us cared enough to keep it being so.
‘Hoppers’ is currently showing in cinemas nationwide.
