At The Movies with James Phelan: Hoppers
Hoppers
Pixar are in a funny place right now. And it’s funny ‘strange’ as opposed to funny ‘hah hah’. Once the animation industry leader in both entertainment value and box office performance, their golden run of classics has slipped out of the groove lately. Whether it was tonally odd choices like the inexplicably leaden ‘Lightyear’ or a quality film like ‘Elio’ that just didn’t catch fire with audiences.
That said, it has to be acknowledged that the world around them has shifted too. With Disney’s own dedicated streaming channel waiting as every Pixar film’s ultimate destination, it seems that film viewers are waiting as well. Now it may take proven performers like the ‘Toy Story’ franchise to pull fans back to the cinemas. Instalment number five arrives this summer.
In the meantime, Pixar are still generating original material alongside their recurring regulars. And if there is a slump, movies like ‘Hoppers’ represent a real move in the right direction. This brisk and bright effort blends fun and entertainment into an ecologically aware message that never gets preachy or too heavy.
The film opens with a young student, Mabel, striving to liberate her entire school’s collection of classroom pets from their cages and return them to the wild. These regular acts of eco rebellion land her in hot water. The young activist is often deposited at her hippie grandmother’s rural house to calm down. Under the wise guidance of her granny, Mabel does indeed find her zen observing the rife pond life at a beautiful spot in the woods.
The tradition of this inter-generational hang out engrains a deep love of nature in Mabel. So, when the film hops forward by a decade, Mabel’s protective and pro-active defence of this beloved environment dominates her entire life when a ruthless mayor wants to plough a bypass road through this teeming treasured habitat. Ostensibly still a student, Mabel is skipping college to try and keep the bulldozers at bay.
Her impassioned campaign has the sympathy and support of her frustrated biology professor Sam, who is actually a bit of a kindred spirit. A fact revealed in full when Mabel stumbles upon the university’s secret new technology to ‘hop’ human consciousness into a robotic beaver. Once a mind transfer is complete, the beaver passes for real and can infiltrate the animal kingdom and report its findings back.
Mabel is pumped to see if she can rescue her pond from the point of extinction, so she hops into the hot seat and zaps her mind inside the beaver. This rogue move does not have the support of her professor so Mabel is on her own out in the wilderness. Yet her nimble and open mind means she makes far better and more immediate progress than her elders ever did with the same technology.
Out on a limb, Mabel’s prime goal, of coaxing animal life back to her sacred spot in the woods in order to halt its destruction, is forced to take a back seat when she makes surprising connections and deep friendships with creatures great and small. Her plan pivots to trying to reason with the power mad mayor while in her beaver guise, which leads to the funniest and most sustained action of the film.
All of this chaos plays out in a fun finale that brings this wonderfully upbeat family film to a perfect end. This may not be top tier Pixar but it’s a natural fit for kids of all ages.
