Hoppers

Nature, Robots, and a Pixar Firing on All Cylinders

Like much of the other Disney brands, Pixar's reputation was severely hurt by the insatiable quotas for "content" in the Streaming Wars, to populate Disney+. The result was that the once pristine animation studio began to turn to easy stories, choosing quantity over quality. The studio had already begun to show creative fatigue as it started to heavily focus on sequels in the mid-2010s, with Finding Dory (2016) and Incredibles 2 (2018) as forgettable examples. This reached a fever pitch after the pandemic, when then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek forwent theatrical releases altogether for Pixar films, which in turn began to cater to lower standards of storytelling. Sure, the films were still cute and enjoyable, but have the likes of Luca (2021), Lightyear (2022), or Elio (2025) stuck in your memory? This seems to be changing: Disney has slowed down its overall production, and the latest Pixar release reinjects the brand with creative verve and emotional appeal.

Hoppers (2026) is the story of environmental activist and university student Mabel (Piper Curda), who, in a bid to stop a highway construction from destroying a beloved glade, uses experimental technology at her school to transfer her mind into a realistic, robotic beaver that can communicate with animals. As the rebellious Mabel ventures into nature and tries to rally animals to retake the glade, she discovers that the natural world is not what she expected.

The premise sounds more creatively contorted than it actually is, with co-writer and first-time director Daniel Chong making each outlandish decision feel organic and earned. Chong delivers the best and most enlivening Pixar film since Coco (2017), complete with the studio's trademark humor, its dual track of adult and children's entertainment, a stellar animation style, and real emotional punch. The bones of the story remain simple and winning: at its core, this is a coming-of-age tale about a girl discovering how to use her voice and where to place her values. The film never takes the predictable route, finding the shortest narrative path between story beats without pretending to wander toward an obvious answer. The pace is steady and quick, making the runtime breeze by and keeping you genuinely intrigued by where it's going.

That snappy pace matches the return to witty Pixar humor, sorely missing from recent films, which felt dumbed down to suit only small children. The brilliance of Pixar's comedy has always been its observational simplicity. It's impossible not to chuckle at a beaver approaching some stairs, pausing to place its hand on the railing before heading down, or at a background exchange between two gossiping deer: "...and she was coming out of someone else's burrow!" It's neither overdone nor too sparse, keeping a steady smile on your face throughout.

The film also treats its characters with a depth and nuance that is rare in today's children's fare, which tends to draw sharp lines between the good guys and the bad. In Hoppers, clear-cut villains are largely absent: Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) pushes for the beltway yet is shown to be a decent person. It is only in the third act that the film surrenders to a binary good-and-evil framework, which, while effective for dramatic purposes, does soften a central message about trusting in the goodness inside all people.

That goodness is what I was most taken by, especially as it relates to the film's political leaders. Both the mayor and the beaver king (Bobby Moynihan) deeply care about their subjects and constituents, and while perhaps misguided in some of their plans, act from neither greed nor malice. It is a rather necessary portrait of political leadership at a time when the real world is offering scant examples.

The finale draws on a steady build-up of emotional investment, to such successful effect that I couldn't hold back tears in the climactic scene. Hoppers is one of the first Pixar must-sees in nearly a decade, and its creative daring and touching warmth deserve to be celebrated on the big screen.

8.5/10