{"id":33142,"date":"2026-03-06T01:38:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=33142"},"modified":"2026-03-06T01:38:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:38:55","slug":"hoppers-beavers-away-to-decent-if-imperfect-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=33142","title":{"rendered":"HOPPERS Beavers Away to Decent If Imperfect Results"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running Time: 104 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feature from Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar\nAnimation Studios opens exclusively in theaters on March 6th<\/sup>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past decade or so, Pixar Animation Studios have taken heat from critics and the public for focusing too much attention on sequels. But to be fair, they have been producing plenty of impressive original works, including Coco, Soul<\/em> and Luca<\/em>. This week, we have another fresh property arriving from the production house. Hoppers<\/em> is a new animated tale and it\u2019s exciting to see a film without a number after its title. Still, while attempting something different offers some pluses, venturing down alternate routes doesn\u2019t always result in a complete success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Set in a town called Beaverton, the film follows Mabel\nTanaka (Piper Curda), a young girl with a temper. She ends up forming a strong\nbond with her grandmother, a forest guide. Years later, the college-age Mabel\nis determined to protect her late grandmother\u2019s favorite glade and prevent it\nfrom being developed. Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) claims the animal\npopulation has left as he nears completion of a freeway overpass on that very\nspot. While Mabel\u2019s last protest fails to stop the project, she does accidentally\ndiscover her biology professor\u2019s top-secret project. The instructor and her\nteam 3D-print robotic animal bodies, temporarily transplant their brains into\nthem, and venture out to presumably study animal life. Mabel decides to borrow\nthe technology, find some animals, and convince them to return to the glade to\nhelp end the project. She implants herself into a beaver, meeting leader King\nGeorge (Bobby Moynihan) and all sorts of wildlife, urging them all to fight for\ntheir territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with all Pixar titles, the animation is spectacular.\nThere are phenomenal shots of beavers swimming underwater and building a dam,\nand when the story and action become more exaggerated, the creative visuals\noccasionally amaze. This includes a chase sequence involving a flock of birds\nlifting a large shark out of the ocean. Additionally, the climax, involving a\nforest fire and a robotic avatar whose parts melt off, has a striking\nappearance (but parents should note that it\u2019s surprisingly unsettling and may\ngive younger audience members nightmares).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the jokes land as well. A scene featured prominently\nin advertising for the movie, involving the beaver version of Mabel trying to\nrelay a message to the mayor via texting, earns a chuckle. It also leads to the\npreviously mentioned chase involving a couple of unusual wildlife species.\nAdditionally, a few moments involving the lead beaver taking on anthropomorphic\ntraits to complete tasks earn a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, not everything on display works. There are several odd\nelements and contradictions that don\u2019t flow well together. So much so that\nthere is even a joke about some of the characters behaving in an incongruous\nmanner. While the statement can certainly apply when a human is trying to\nintegrate with animals, the story leaves the audience questioning a lot of what\nis occurring onscreen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mable is a college student (who would assume is nearing her\ntwenties) with a passion for the natural world, but her knowledge and behavior\nfrequently mirror that of someone half her age. The characters raise concern\nabout the amount of time a brain can spend in the body of an avatar, but\nnothing is done with the idea. A lot of the humor revolves around the sudden\ndeaths of critters, who are eaten, or, in the case of insects, unexpectedly\nswatted. These moments are played for laughs, but rarely land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift midway through the story results in more issues.\nWhen Mabel warns wildlife of the freeway, the majority of creatures decide that\nthe answer to the problem is, in fact, to eliminate all of humanity. Yes, a few\ngags involving tiny beings plotting against larger, more dominant homo sapiens\nraise a smile. However, the tone falters as the story shifts between cute\ninteractions involving furry creatures, along with dark, scary moments\nfeaturing the potentially grim fate of a group of people (not to mention the\nends of several members of various Animal Kingdom species) that are quickly\ntied up with a plea for tolerance and harmony between humankind and nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The many strange shifts and tangents blur the overall\nmessage of the film, and as a result the pieces don\u2019t feel unified or clear by\nthe close. In fact, one begins to feel like the story went through a few too\nmany focus groups and rewrites, ultimately losing whatever individual voice it\nmight have originally possessed. Hoppers<\/em> looks fantastic, but feels like\nit is trying to please everyone in the theater, and in the a little more\nmuddled than hoped for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 104 minutes This feature from Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios opens exclusively in theaters on March 6th. For the past decade or so, Pixar Animation Studios have taken heat from critics and the public for focusing too much attention on sequels. But to be fair, they have been producing plenty of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[217,1455,2426,2427,5922,7283,9308,9309,9310,9311,16155],"class_list":["post-33142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-217","tag-animated","tag-beaver","tag-beavers","tag-disney","tag-family","tag-hoppers","tag-hoppers-film-review","tag-hoppers-movie-review","tag-hoppers-review","tag-pixar"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}