RIOTUS

I’ve been a fan of Daniel Chong for a little while now. We Bare Bears is one of my favorite animated series of the last decade. It’s playful characters of talking animals that are relatable, and also in the normal world resonated with me throughout its run in the normal world. He’s long been part of Pixar Senior Creative Team, and this is his first time directing a Pixar film; Hoppers is a great debut. Hoppers is the story of  Mabel Tanaka, a young college student who is fighting against the local Mayor, Jerry Generazzo, who wants to build a freeway over the Glade that she loves and used to spend time with her grandmother. The Glade, however, no longer has all the wildlife like it used to because the beaver dam is gone. Her biology professor, Dr. Samantha “Sam” Fairfax, tells her it needs a beaver there for all the animals to come back. Lo and behold, Dr. Sam has technology to “hop” people’s minds into a mechanical animal.

Our hero, Mabel, noticing how similar this is to Avatar, then puts her mind into an artificial beaver, which she then tries to get a beaver to come back to the Glade. From there, so much happens where the film has a great take on nature vs humanity as well as a fish out of water story as Mabel meets and befriends King George, a beaver who leads all the local animals in the forest, and shows her how the animal world works. There are some amazing jokes here with Mabel’s human thinking colliding with how nature works, especially with the food chain thing. The friendship between the two is great to see grow, and it’s effortlessly built. You get to Mabel learn to relax when she’s in the animal world compared to her life as a human. In some ways, George feels like a responsible version of Baloo the bear or a very down-to-earth and relatable Mufasa. While these two characters seem far apart, and they are, it’s close to what King George is in this story.

I think at this point in the animated feature “competition” with all the studios versus what could be thought of as a Disney/Pixar hegemony, what Pixar does very well over the years is slow and steady evolutionary progress in how they look and feel. It looks and feels like a Pixar film for the most part. And the film has subtle yet stunning levels of detail in its texture and characters. The water amazed me every time it was on screen. The fur on the animals is some of the best I’ve seen in feeling real yet also a cartoon. The filmmakers also do this thing where the animals’ fur looks like real fur, and Mabel’s faux fur looks like the fur you’d see on some toys, but just realistic enough. Mabel, as a beaver, feels tactile like I could reach in the movie and pick her up, and I know how it would feel.

Now, as I said earlier, it looks like a Pixar film, and that’s true, but it also looks like Chong’s work, and I mean We Bare Bears. The way the character’s eyes are rendered and their expressiveness took me a bit to catch on to, but once I did, it was like EUREKA! I think the way he does expressions and eyes sets this film apart from others visually. I really enjoyed looking at it, and the film has a ton of smart visual gags to keep everyone interested. All the characters are unique, and you shouldn’t get lost in who’s who. The film also does this fantastic thing where the animals’ eyes become those little black dots you’d have in stuffed animals when being perceived by humans, vs how they look to each other. Such a smart design there. Screenwriter Jesse Andrews crafts a really funny script, a story that the two came up with together. The film also has a lot more going on with it. The humor and even the premise deliver good commentary on our society and where we are in our politics and divisiveness.

The idea of what if nature fought back against humanity for its callous use of the earth isn’t a new concept, but this one is a different take. Here, Mabel ends up inciting the animal kingdom to attack humanity by taking direct action against those they feel are their leaders. I don’t think this movie is one that is focused on a right vs. left-leaning thing. For me, it felt like more of a liberal vs progressive battle that has been in political conversations a lot over the last six years. Mabel’s missile-like focus on stopping the mayor and saving the Glade causes her to go too far and not listen to others. Showing her heart in the right place and needing to be listened to and not ignored ends up just as dangerous as Mayor Jesse’s dedicated focus on improving the lives of his citizens at any cost. I jokingly called him Mayor Gavin Newsom as he gave off those vibes, especially with Jon Hamm‘s fantastic voice acting.

Piper Curda‘s performance as Mabel is engrossing; you feel every emotion Mabel is having through the voice acting. It’s such great work. Bobby Moynihan is great as King George; he brings the right amount of dad-like, relatable cadence to this performance. You really end up like King George. Kathy Najimy‘s familiar voice as Dr. Sam is a welcome surprise, and her always exasperated performance. Aparna Nancherla as Nisha steals some scenes with some great zingers, while Dave Franco as Titus, the insect king, is wonderfully annoying when his character joins the film. It was great to hear Isiah Whitlock Jr. (R.I.P.) again in this as the Bird King, and Meryl Streep voices the Insect Queen, and man, I wish she did more voice work.

I feel like most Pixar films Hoppers juggles its family film status and their ability to make deep and thoughtful films excellently. While they seem to be in a weird place of sometimes connecting with audiences and sometimes not, especially with their more original stories ever since the pandemic, I think people will resonate more with this than last year’s Elio. The humor is top-notch, the film has great cinematic references, and a story that you can get behind, and everyone, from adults to kids, should enjoy. Hoppers feels like it’s going to be a perfect start to a 1-2 punch from Pixar this year.