Hoppers Trades Pixar Magic for Surface-Level Charm

Hoppers

★ ★ ½

Hoppers is the latest Pixar animated adventure, following young animal lover Mabel (Piper Curda) as she does everything she can to save the glade by her grandmother’s (Karen Huie) house from Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm), whose city beltway project threatens to destroy it. Pixar has a strong history of emotionally charged animated masterpieces that entertain and grab you by the feels. Unfortunately, Hoppers swaps emotion for lesson, taking a step backward from the great storytelling that once defined Pixar.

Piper Curda as Mabel
© 2026 Disney/Pixar

A younger Mabel gets in trouble at school when she sets all the classroom mascots free from their cages. It’s not the first time she’s done this and her teachers and parents are at their wits’ end. So they send her to live with grandma. She takes Mabel to a special rock where they sit and listen. Grandma is trying to get Mabel to connect with nature and curb her anger. It mostly works, and the glade becomes deeply important to Mabel.

Mabel lives with grandma until she passes away, and Mabel takes it upon herself to keep protecting the glade. Her beliefs are in direct conflict with Jerry’s politics and the two have become enemies. To the film’s credit, it doesn’t wander too deep into political ideology, though it’s apparent which side of the aisle each character occupies. Mostly this is just background fodder for their struggles with one another.

© 2026 Disney/Pixar

Mabel attends the local university and discovers her professor, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy), has invented a device that will allow a human to ‘hop’ into a realistic animal robot in order to mix with wildlife and observe subjects up close. There’s also a handy feature that translates animal noises to English. The science is barely explained beyond Dr. Sam and her assistant pointing at their heads and saying, ‘we put this …’ then pointing to the robot animal and adding, ‘…into this.’ They repeat the bit several times. Behind them, of course, is a complicated diagram on a green chalkboard.

Think of it like hacking into The Matrix but with animals.

Mabel hijacks the project to try and save the glade, find why the animals have left and figure out a way to stop Mayor Jerry’s beltway from destroying it.

Piper Curda as Mabel
© 2026 Disney/Pixar

The film misses that essential Pixar emotional connection. Pixar once showed us childhood through the eyes of toys played with less and less, evoking deep nostalgia and reminding us of carefree playtime. What could have been a deep exploration of what happens to animals when they’re forced to relocate becomes a surface-level concept that trades the special bond humans have with animals for cheap jokes and humor.

Mabel herself feels ripped right out of the over-hyperactive, uber-saccharine Disney Channel view of how a teenage girl behaves. She’s full of nervous energy, and the filmmakers seem to have her talking just to fill dead space. That quiet space in movies is ripe for emotional development and connection. It’s all but abandoned here.

There’s still a little glimpse of the Pixar magic of yesterday where two opposing characters realize that there’s a reason for the other’s point of view and seeing things from that perspective can go a long way to resolve a deep-seated conflict. It doesn’t mean they agree, but it does allow for common ground. I wish the film explored that theme more deeply, but I was glad to see it there at all.

Piper Curda as Mabel and Eduardo Franco as Loaf
© 2026 Disney/Pixar

Hoppers is still a decent, moderately entertaining film despite its predictability and hyper-energized, Disneyfied characters. It’s a film ripe for deeper exploration. The ramifications of a human mind in a robotic animal body could have tapped into the lonely despair of Toy Story’s lost toys. When characters are pushed to the edge and forced through profound, life-changing experiences, we identify with them on a deeper level. This film chooses to hop on by instead.