I went into Hoppers expecting another talking animals Disney movie. What I got was something completely unexpected: a smart science fiction story for both adults and kids.

Disney and Pixar have been giants in modern animation for both children and adults for decades. Over the past several years that crown has started to wibble and wobble a little. Other animation studios like Ufotable, MAPPA, and Enlight Animation have been experimenting with new storytelling techniques and visual styles that feel fresh and bold … and exciting! They even feel a bit more daring than what either Disney or Pixar has been putting on screen lately.

With the new film Hoppers, both Disney and Pixar are clearly trying to remind audiences why we used to trust these studios to deliver well-told and smartly written animated films.

This wasn’t just a simple, goofy animated film. The characters were compelling and they all had a lot to lose in addition to the fun that they were having in the story. At the center of the story are a young girl named Mabel, a quiet glade filled with nature, and a group of animals who call the glade home. Soon the fate of both the animal kingdom and the human town of Beaverton becomes tied to whether that fragile balance between nature and people can survive.

So, the real question is, have Disney and Pixar been able to pull off keeping their seat at the top of the animation pile? Or is Hoppers just another hit-and-miss entry that falls short of the quality audiences have come to expect from these studios?

After watching Hoppers, I think a lot of people will be surprised by this one.

You can read the review below or watch the video review on YouTube:

Hoppers is the story of a young girl named Mabel who has an intense love of nature and animals. Unfortunately, she doesn’t always express that love in the best way. Her anger about how animals are treated often puts her in situations where she ends up hurting the very cause she is trying to support.

Over time she begins spending more time with her grandmother, who introduces her to a special place called the Glade. It’s a quiet spot with a pond, a beaver dam, and animals that live there. Her grandmother tells her that if you stop and listen carefully, you can hear the rhythm of that world, and everything else just fades away. It’s the kind of place that helps Mabel reconnect with what really matters.

After her grandmother passes away, Mabel’s connection to the Glade begins to fade as well. At the same time, the town’s mayor, Jerry, begins pushing a plan to build an overpass through the area. Since the animals are now gone, the Glade is no longer considered protected land.

The only way Mabel can stop the construction is to either gather enough signatures to halt the project or reintroduce a beaver to the pond so the area can regain protected status. Neither option seems possible until one day she spots a mysterious beaver visiting the Glade before hopping away and being picked up by a strange black van.

Curious and desperate, she follows the trail back to her local university and discovers that the beaver is part of the Hopper Research Project run by one of her professors, which introduces an unexpected science and robotics experiment into the story. That discovery opens an entirely new way for Mabel to connect with the animal world and try to save the place she loves.

Animation That Feels Real Without Breaking the Illusion

Hoppers is a beautifully illustrated animated film that manages to hold onto its animated charm while using visual effects that give parts of the movie a slightly live-action feel. Thankfully, that “live action feel” never crosses into that uncanny territory where animated characters start looking too real, which can pop us out of the story when our brains start seeing things that look real but simply aren’t possible.

The balance they strike between animation and high-end photorealistic graphics within Hoppers is one of the film’s greatest strengths. Pixar stays firmly in its signature animation style while still giving the world enough visual depth to make the environments feel tangible and alive.

Where Nature, Science, and Story Meet

The film blends together three different storytelling elements that could easily have felt disconnected, including the animal kingdom, the human community, and the scientific work being done at the university. It’s the surprising combination of these things that quietly turns Hoppers into a fun and magical science fiction story.

I genuinely didn’t expect any of this when I walked into the theater, and I don’t want to spoil the details for you, but it becomes clear that the story is as much about the possibilities of science as it is about nature and wonder. In that sense the film reminded me a little of The Wild Robot. The animation style is completely different, but both stories explore the intersection between technology, animals, and human empathy. It also had those endearing and wonderful moments that had kids in my theater laughing in delight or leaning over to their parents to explain why the beavers or bugs or birds were doing certain things. Sometimes seeing children’s reactions in theaters is the most wonderful thing about a film.

A Story About Communication and Trust

One of the things that struck me about Hoppers is how well the film balances its themes. At its heart, this is a story about communication. Humans and animals are both trying to survive in the same space, but they don’t understand one another.

Throughout the film you see characters attempting to find a way to bridge that gap. Mabel eventually succeeds at connecting with George, the King Beaver, and that connection opens up a new level of understanding between them, but also introduces some complications that undermine the trust between them. Their communication isn’t perfect and it isn’t always precise, but there is a genuine effort to find common ground and solve problems together, which is organic to the plot and structure of the film because it’s also part of their characters’ growth.

I know that a lot of people right now get pretty bent out of shape about Disney or Pixar including “messages” in their movies, but every story has a message. Stories are messages. They’re histories and memories and experiences woven into a tale that allows ideas to pass from one person to another in a meaningful form. Every story contains themes and problems for characters to overcome. Those struggles eventually become a lesson learned or a piece of wisdom the storyteller passes along to the audience.

That’s what storytelling has always been about. It’s how human beings have passed knowledge and values down over time from generation to generation. It’s what allows us to understand each other and keeps us alive.

The real problem with so many films over the past decade is that many of them have forgotten the nature of how stories operate. So instead of being story first, they started with a message and then built a story around it or they developed a story that would draw a large paying audience, and they shoehorned a message into the story. When that happens the story and the message feel disconnected rather than organic and seamless. That is something audiences are keenly attuned to and there is nothing audiences hate more than when they feel like they have just paid money for an event that turns into a sales pitch for a product, idea, or activity. We pay money to escape into a story, not to be pitched to during a movie.

What Hoppers does differently from so many recent Disney and Pixar movies is that it focuses on the story first. The themes grow naturally out of the characters and the situations they face. If you were to remove those lessons from the film, the story would break because they are organic to the characters’ growth and experiences. That’s how you know those themes and ideas belong there. As a result, the characters are well developed, their conflicts make sense, and the audience can genuinely empathize with what they care about.

Science Fiction That Serves the Story

Another element that really impressed me was the science fiction side of the story. I’ve said for a long time that science fiction doesn’t need endless technobabble to sound intelligent. What it needs are science-fiction elements that are essential to the story. Things that are used as practical story elements that, if you removed them from a film like Hoppers, the entire narrative would collapse. That’s exactly what good science fiction should do; it holds up the structure of the story.

The film also makes excellent use of color, action, and animation to bring this world to life. Even the music choices are surprisingly fun. At one point the movie uses the song “Working for the Weekend” from the 1980s, and when that song started playing, I immediately started laughing because it fits the scene perfectly as the beavers get to work.

Sometimes using older songs in movies can feel lazy or overdone, but when the right song appears at the right moment it creates a perfect blend of music, action, and storytelling. That scene is one of the moments where the film’s energy really comes together.

What Works and What Doesn’t

Of all the recent Disney films I’ve seen, Hoppers is the first one that actually reminded me of why I used to love Disney movies when I was a kid. Back then, you could walk into the theater and simply be swept away into a world filled with action, adventure, new friendships, and characters learning from their mistakes. All of that would come together in a wonderful magical world that focuses on the story and why that story mattered to me as a viewer.

With all films, there are mistakes, but most of what we get with Hoppers is so insignificant that they don’t really stand out. Plus, the story doesn’t feel like the conflicts or mistakes that the characters make were artificially inserted just to push the plot forward. The characters make decisions that feel believable, even when those decisions don’t work out the way they hoped.

That authenticity is where the film really shines.

The film is well-written, keeping more than one audience in mind. Kids will enjoy the animals and the humor. Adults will probably connect more strongly with some of the larger ideas about science and communication.

Recommendation

So, do Disney and Pixar manage to reclaim their crown as the kings of animated storytelling?

Maybe. It’s too early to say whether they’ve permanently regained that title, but Hoppers is absolutely worth seeing. It works as a family movie. It works for adults too, and it even works as a fun night out with friends.

The movie offers characters and ideas that resonate across generations, and that’s often the sign of a Disney film that has the potential to become a classic.

For viewers who have been frustrated with Disney in recent years, this film feels like a return to the old school storytelling that made the studio great in the first place. It focuses on characters, imagination, and a story that brings people together rather than dividing them. That’s something I’m very happy to see from Disney again.

Final Thoughts

So, have you heard of Hoppers? Have you seen it yet? It’s now playing in theaters, and I would love to know what you think about it. A lot of viewers are understandably frustrated with Disney right now for a variety of reasons. Some of those concerns are completely valid. What’s fascinating about Hoppers is that it really feels like a return to the kind of storytelling that originally made Disney special, and I’m the kind of person who believes in second chances. So, I’m curious. If you have been avoiding Disney movies lately, are you planning to give this one a chance? Let me know what you think.

If you enjoyed this review, please give it a like and subscribe for more. You can also visit my YouTube channel at @ErinUnderwood for more videos.