Cinema from the Spectrum

Not in a very long time did I ever think I would be hearing a Bikini Kill needle drop in a Pixar film. That might just be a sign of things to come in Hoppers, the feature directorial debut from We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong. Pixar has been on a fairly rocky streak after Toy Story 3, but the occasional reminders of greatness have come by in films like Inside Out and Coco. Hoppers is another one of those reminders, perhaps because it’s taking wild swings that seemed unprecedented in Pixar’s recent output. Maybe a far cry from their peak period, but given their track record as of late, it feels like this might indeed be a step in the right direction for the studio.

It all starts with how our protagonist, Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) is introduced. She’s an animal lover, even to the point where she would attempt to free animals from their cages while in school. After causing enough trouble for her teachers, she’s dropped to live with her grandmother, who helps foster her love of nature through a glade she lives close by. This love of nature follows Mabel through most of her life. As a rebellious college student, her own drive to protect nature is further incentivized when Beaverton’s mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) wants to build a highway where her beloved glade lies. It’s a fine pretext that reaches out to young audiences, encouraging them to stand up for what they believe in, but soon, Daniel Chong introduces another genre shift that takes Hoppers up another notch.

This all comes in the form of a new technology at Mabel’s college developed by her professor (Kathy Najimy), which allows her to “hop” into the consciousness of an animal via a lifelike robotic. Things get wild real fast, especially after Mabel hops into a beaver, and befriends the Beaver King (Bobby Moynihan) – and learns that there’s a lot more to animal life than she’d expected. It’s where Daniel Chong builds a new world out of what seemed to be familiar, especially when we learn about other animal kingdoms that coexist within this same space that Mabel thought she knew well growing up. It’s all very overwhelming for her, and Daniel Chong manages to bring us into this with relative ease, embracing the weirdness of it all, to a point where it even transforms into a body horror movie of sorts.

With how much chaos is naturally built into this premise, Daniel Chong delivers maybe the most playful Pixar film in quite some time. And on that note, it’s possibly the best one since Turning Red, especially when it’s embodying that same rebellious attitude that defined a big part of growing up. Everything here comes in service of a message that may very well incentivize younger viewers to stand up for what they believe in, especially when someone like Mabel is used to having people say no to protecting nature. Alas, it might just also be where the film’s environmentalist themes achieve a greater power. To this end, it could easily have been possibly their most potent effort since WALL-E, yet it ends up falling quite short of that.

The lofty ambitions of Hoppers perhaps take a bit of a backseat, though, considering how the film approaches the central conflict unfolding between Mabel and the self-centered Mayor Jerry. If Hoppers had committed well enough to its own messaging about environmentalism, you sense that this conflict between a rebellious girl and an egotistical politician could be a perfect ground for that. Even with how the film sets up Jerry to be the villain, it all seems promising on that front. Unfortunately, it seems like that’s where Hoppers even risks betraying its own ideals, considering a major plot twist where the real antagonist is revealed. Not to say it’s any less funny seeing how Daniel Chong wants to deliver something that seems unprecedented for a recent Pixar title, but this simplistic moralizing only ends up putting the film at an impasse. It’s indeed, just the same “we just need to get along” message that rings out as being trite, considering how much it’s taught to children through these movies.

Despite these reservations, I think that Hoppers might be a sign that Pixar’s moving back towards the right direction after a fairly inconsistent streak that started after Cars 2. While I wish that Hoppers didn’t peter out on its environmentalist ambitions for a centrist “Let’s all get along” plea, there are more than enough wild swings in Hoppers that remind you what Pixar used to be, years ago. Of course, with this being a Disney release, it would be absurd to expect something more committed on that front, but knowing what heights they’ve achieved with WALL-E, it’s not out of the question. After all, you probably won’t ever get another Pixar movie that tries to match up to the likes of a David Cronenberg movie with its central premise. At the very least, you see that with Daniel Chong directing, he’s trying to mine as much of the weirdness out as he can. And it’s endearing.

Watch the trailer right here.

All images via Disney.

Directed by Daniel Chong
Screenplay by Jesse Andrews
Produced by Nicole Paradis Grindle
Starring Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco
Premiere Date: February 23, 2026
Running Time: 105 minutes