OVERVIEW
In Pixar’s Hoppers, scientists create lifelike robots that can communicate with animals, built around a concept the film itself jokes is “nothing like James Cameron’s Avatar!” When nature-loving teenager Mabel discovers the technology by accident, she hops into a beaver robot to warn the animals about a city expansion plan that threatens the natural order of things. The film leans more heavily into comedy than the studio usually does and features some extremely cute animal designs, but it is also rather formulaic, echoing not only the classic Pocahontas structure, but also Studio Ghibli’s Pom Poko.
BACKGROUND
Hoppers arrives at a moment when Pixar has been struggling to give its original films the same reach as its sequels, even when those sequels return to a 10-year-old original. Daniel Chong, who had earlier involvement with the studio and later proved his abilities with Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears, is exactly the kind of first-time feature director Pixar seems comfortable betting on right now. Between his sensibility for animal behavior, the film’s amiable creature design, and a noticeably stronger marketing push than 2025’s Elio, Hoppers feels very much like a carefully chosen safe original, one the studio had every reason to feel optimistic about.
EXECUTION
It is perhaps Pixar’s safest film yet. It unquestionably maintains the studio’s high-quality standards, with beautifully realized animation and enough clever jokes to keep younger audiences consistently amused. It is all perfectly agreeable, yet its strict adherence to an already familiar formula and its reluctance to push beyond it clearly limit its potential.
To its credit, Hoppers does have a few surprises, including some unexpectedly nasty deaths. There are also mild subversions in the animals’ behavior, but none are significant enough to truly surprise or shape the narrative. If classic Pixar used the “road trip” structure seamlessly as a foundation for inventive worlds and mature themes, the studio’s over-reliance on the “character pretends to be someone else” device since Coco now feels saturated. Here, the original characters, world, and themes do little to offset that growing sense of familiarity.
As a protagonist, Mabel falls on the more forgettable side of Pixar’s lineup, and her isolated teenage longing for connection has been explored much better elsewhere. The environmental theme never finds a particularly fresh angle, and the emotional beats, while present, do not hit with the same effectiveness as they did in the underappreciated Elio. It is the supporting players who leave more of an impression, whether it is King George’s passivity, Jerry’s greed, or Titus and his small scale villainy.
There is more slapstick humor here than Pixar usually goes for, which fits well with the film’s Pom Poko influence. At times, Hoppers feels like a child-friendly, far more overstimulated version of that film, and it is often at its best when it leans into humor that is slightly creepy or unexpectedly harsh. It is less effective when that energy is filtered through Mabel’s overbearing personality. The score is serviceable without being especially memorable, while the animation feels like an extension of Pixar’s recent design sensibilities, particularly in the underrated Win or Lose. It is all competently realized, but never close to the studio’s peak.
AFTERTASTE
Pixar once felt like a studio constantly expanding the possibilities of family filmmaking, and that version of it now seems harder and harder to find. Hoppers is polished, amusing, and easy to like, so families simply looking for a cute diversion should be satisfied. But it also makes clear, in a slightly dispiriting way, why even the sequels to the studio’s older, more inventive films can still feel fuller of wonder than the all-new stories meant to replace them.