Review: Pixar's "HOPPERS" Surprises and Amazes

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 of 2026 (No. 2057) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hoppers (2026)

Running time:  104 minutes

Rating:  MPA –  PG for action/peril, some scary images and mild language

DIRECTOR:  Daniel Chong

WRITERS:  Jesse Andrews and Daniel Chong; from a story by Jesse Andrews

PRODUCER:  Nicole Paradis Grindle

CINEMATOGRAPHERS:  Jeremy Lasky and Ian Megibben

EDITOR:  Axel Geddes

COMPOSER: Mark Mothersbaugh

SONG: “Save the Day” sung by SZA and written by SZA, Ben Lovett, and Rob Bisel

ANIMATION/FANTASY/FAMILY and ADVENTURE/COMEDY

SUMMARY OF REVIEW:

Disney/Pixar's Hoppers has some of the best chase sequences and action scenes that I've ever seen in a Pixar film. They're better than what audiences find in a lot of live-action films

The characters are an utter delight. I think most viewers of Hoppers will see themselves in Mabel Tanaka, and the animal characters memorable in the way many Disney/Pixar animated characters tend to be

The science fiction elements in Hoppers are as charming as the magical elements found in the best fantasy films. This movie is made to delight adults and children of many ages because it is one of Disney/Pixar's best

Starring:  (voices) Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Eduardo Franco, Aparna Nancherla, Tom Law, Sam Richardson, Melissa Villasenor, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Steve Purcell, Ego Nwodim, Nichole Sakura, Meryl Streep, Karen Huie, Lila Liu, Carlos Alazraqui, Grey DeLisle, Jorden Wyrick, and Secunda Wood

Hoppers is a 2026 American animated science fiction, action, and comedy film from director Daniel Chong.  It was produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures.  The film follows an animal-loving college student who transfers her mind into a robotic beaver in a bid to save a beaver habitat from destruction, actions that only lead to disaster.

Hoppers is set in and around the city of Beaverton.  The story introduces Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), a 19-year-old college student and an intense animal-lover.  When she was a child, Mabel and Grandmother Tanaka (Karen Huie) found solace in a glade in a nearby forest.  After her grandmother passes, Mabel takes it upon herself to care for the glade.

However, Beaverton's Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) has announced his new “Beaverton Beltway,” a highway system that will encircle the city in order to better connect it.  Mayor Jerry's plan includes routing the beltway through Mabel's glade mainly because he says that the animals have abandoned it.

While trying to lure the animals back to the glade, Mabel discovers that her biology professor, Dr. Sam Fairfax (Kathy Najimy), and her colleagues, Nisha (Aparna Nancherla) and Conner (Sam Richardson), have developed the “Hoppers” program.  It is a new technology that allows them to transfer their minds into robotic animals.  Mabel transfers her mind into a robotic beaver that will allow her to communicate with the beavers that once inhabited the glade.  Mabel then discovers a world of animals beyond her imagination, but her activities will lead to one disaster after another.

I won't waste my time or yours, dear readers, preaching about the quality of the animation in a Pixar film. I'd rather wait until there is a day I can complain when I find a Pixar film that visually looks inferior.  However, I will do something I have done in almost all of my reviews of Pixar films, praise this movie a lot.  Not only does Hoppers have that magical Pixar charm and heartwarming storytelling, but it also has a really strong message.  I know some people claim films should not have messages, and they are right.  If a studio is making fast food-like entertainment, if the studio is making yet another movie featuring characters running away from CGI-generated weather phenomena, then, yeah, there probably is no message that it could deliver in an interesting fashion.

However, Hoppers isn't mere entertainment product, so it does have a message.  Mabel wants to save the glade so badly that she her advocacy becomes interference and turns as disastrous and practically as destructive as Mayor Jerry's plans.  Mabel is certainly one of those Pixar characters that is both lovable and has universal appeal, but she is more than just a heartwarming character.  With here as the lead, Hoppers manages to have a message and also be a wonderful tale of friendship and redemption filled with Pixar's usual eye-popping action set pieces.  The scenes with Diane (Vanessa Bayer), the great white shark, are... well, I think they the stuff of cinematic magic.

Hoppers represents peak Pixar storytelling, and I wish that I'd seen this grand, inventively-visual cinematic gem on a theater's big screen.  Hoppers makes me want to invent adjectives to describe and to praise it, but I can simply highly recommend it.

9 of 10

A+

Saturday, September 5, 2026

The text is copyright © 2026 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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