‘Hoppers’ is the Best Pixar Film of the Decade

The key concept in animation, since the early days of Felix the Cat and then Mickey Mouse a hundred years ago, is anthropomorphization (the act of attributing human traits to animals.) Yet there are degrees of this practice where non-human characters are endowed with human characteristics: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck wear clothes and live in human-ish houses; Bugs Bunny lives in a hole in the ground, like a real rabbit, even if he is gifted with the ability to speak English and the intelligence to outwit many a dim-witted, usually human, adversary.Early in “Hoppers,” the excellent and highly recommended new film from Pixar, the lead character Mabel, when informed of the fictitious device that will power the whole story, shouts enthusiastically, “Guys, this is like ‘Avatar!’” To which the rather defensive response comes back immediately, “This is nothing like ‘Avatar!’” Of course it is like “Avatar” but in a very worthwhile way; this Pandora-like technology not only echoes that other blockbuster franchise trilogy, but it is way cooler than anything James Cameron ever dreamed up. This is the means by which Dr. Samantha “Sam” Fairfax (voiced by Kathy Najimy), as she puts it, “gains unprecedented access to the animal world.” In the narrative context of the film however, it’s more the case that this tech enables the actual, real-life animal world to become the cartoon animal world, in which furry, winged, and finned creatures speak and interact with each other like humans.When Mabel (Piper Curda) enters the animal kingdom, all of a sudden, it becomes rather like the world of Disney’s “Bambi,” in which semi-anthromorphic creatures resemble their real-life counterparts, but with key differences: the deer are four-legged and live in the forest but they have human-esque life cycles and all the various species of critters of the forest — deers, rabbits, skunks — converse in a common verbal language.All of which is worth paying attention to because “Hoppers” is both the best Pixar film of the current decade thus far and the best wholly original Pixar release — not a sequel or part of an existing franchise — since “Coco” (2017) and the under-appreciated “Onward” (2020). This May will mark the 20th anniversary of Disney owning Pixar. “Hoppers” has everything you want in a Pixar project: the high, original concept, the engaging storyline, the memorable characters, the witty dialogue and the abundant humor. Not to mention beavers that are a darn sight cuter than the ones in the recent oddball epic “Hundreds of Beavers.” One point that “Hoppers” shares with “Monsters, Inc.” is that the animal characters inhabit a world that mirrors human society; in common with the walking eyeball named “Mike,” the furry friends of “Hoppers” all have modern, mundane names, like the slightly-annoyed bear called Ellen (Melissa Villaseñor) and the obliging killer shark called Diane (Vanessa Bayer). They have a government that includes monarchs and dynasties; the major woodland power figure is a wise beaver named King George (Bobby Moynihan), apparently not a reference to “Hamilton.”In the human world, the main heavy is the ambitious Mayor Jerry, played to a tee by that master creator of loveable rogues, Jon Hamm—apparently no relation to “Hamm” in the “Toy Story” franchise. Director Daniel Chong and screenwriter Jesse Andrews are to be commended for avoiding one major mistake that Mr. Cameron fell into in the “Avatar” series, in which the human beings are clearly the bad guys and the natives are portrayed as noble savages in the manner of vintage Hollywood westerns. Here, the animal characters are inherently sympathetic but they are subject to human foibles. An event to celebrate ‘Hoppers’ in Beaverton, Oregon. Mat Hayward/Getty Images for DisneyMabel is shocked to learn that the animals consider the human community to be part of their overall ecosystem — the “Circle of Life” as they say in “The Lion King” — and do not automatically regard people to be their enemies. Surprisingly, they also tolerate being on each other’s food chain, as King George informs her, “When you gotta eat… eat!” even if that means one sentient being devouring another. I guess a bear eating a beaver or a frog eating an insect isn’t exactly cannibalism, even if some will be reminded of the scene in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” where you meet your food and have a discussion with it before eating it. To the credit of Mr. Chong and Mr. Andrews, the forest denizens are depicted as being just as short-sighted, dense, dogmatic, and pig-headed — if those last two adjectives aren’t considered animal slander — as the humans. There’s an animal character, and telling you more than that would be a major spoiler (though it can be revealed that the voice actor is Dave Franco), who turns out to be a far more murderous and devilish villain than any of the homo sapiens. The whole thing takes a very dark turn in the final act, and, in the epic conclusion, the beavers and assorted forest friends wind up saving the human world.I have no doubt that there will be sequels with new twists and turns, but even more than a second feature, it would be welcome to see a streaming series like “Monsters at Work” or better still, a series of traditional cartoon-length shorts starring King George and his beaver buddies. “Hoppers” is first-class Pixar, which is as fine a compliment as I can pay it, beyond saying it’s the best dam movie they’ve made in a while.

‘Hoppers’ is the Best Pixar Film of the Decade

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