The Pixar name used to signify indisputable quality for an animated film, but their light has dimmed in the past decade with a string of underwhelming releases. While Luca, Lightyear and Elio would be considered solid hits by any other studio’s metrics and Elemental and Inside Out 2 certainly brought home the bacon, there’s a sensation that the studio has become a victim of its own success and seems content to now coast by on the strength of former glories (Toy Story 5 hits cinemas this summer with The Incredibles 3 currently in the works) rather than innovate.
To their credit, Pixar seems to keep hiring in the right direction – Hoppers heralds the return of Daniel Chong, who cut his teeth across the studio as well as Walt Disney Animation Studios and Illumination before receiving acclaim for his Cartoon Network series We Bare Bears. Animated animals also provide the apparatus for his second feature, from a script by Luca co-writer Jesse Andrews, as an environmentally-minded 19-year-old wages war on the local mayor after he announces plans to turn a local beauty spot into a freeway.
Mabel (Piper Curda) has been visiting the tranquil glade by her grandmother’s house since she was a plucky kindergartener trying to liberate classroom pets, and she’s not about to stand by and let Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) pave paradise. Realising if she can prove that the glade is home to wildlife the construction plans will be scuppered, she turns to her college biology professor Dr. Sam Fairfax (Kathy Najimy) for help, only to accidentally stumble upon her latest innovation: a device which allows humans to “hop” their consciousness into a small robotic animal (say, a beaver) and use that to communicate with them. When Fairfax and her colleagues are reluctant to help Mabel save the glade, she takes matters into her own hands.
The ensuing plot revolves around Mabel – in the body of a robotic beaver – trying to convince the local wildlife to band together to save the glade, which is easier said than done. She runs into all sorts of colourful characters, from eager-to-please George (Bobby Moynihan) to Diane the Shark (Vanessa Bayer) and the menacing Insect Queen (Meryl Streep) and her progeny Titus (Dave Franco). In this respect there’s glimpses of recent Dreamworks adventure The Wild Robot, a similarly ecologically minded story featuring a zany critter cast – the cutesy Hoppers creatures even visually feel more attuned with the more cartoony inhabitants of Dreamworks and Illumination films than Pixar’s traditionally more thoughtful designs. (Even in a film like Ratatouille it feels like the animals are That’s not to say these characters aren’t cute – they’re precision engineered to steal the hearts of Hoppers’ pint-sized audience (and empty the wallets of mum and dad at the Disney Store).
A sound voice cast and some genuinely fun quips make Hoppers a pleasant caper – if you squint it might even have some sound messaging about unionising that Disney probably don’t want you to think too much about – and it’s a relief to see the studio committing to original storytelling as well as sequels in an age where the House of Mouse is otherwise content churning out endless sequels and “live-action” reboots. But one can’t help but long for something a little more exciting than “pleasant” – Pixar used to lead the animation industry, and they’ve been treading water for far too long.
