Hoppers Review!

Hoppers is very funny with touches of some animal wisdom, loveable characters, and a strong story! It is directed by Daniel Chong also with a co-story credit. He is known as the creator of the Cartoon Network show, We Bare Bears, and he wrote and directed the We Bare Bars: The Movie (2020). The co-story writer and screenplay is by Jesse Andrews who also did the same work for Luca (2021). An opening tease has an electrical surge travels along wires to a robot. We hear drum rolls almost like the somber beginning of a military march or a call to arms for the young hero. The music is by Mark Mothersbaugh who composed music for A Minecraft Movie (2025). A pond is seen and a turtle merges out of it. The diorama is labeled Crush after the turtle in Finding Nemo (2003). The kids poke at him until Crush is flipped upside down and then rush outside for recess. Crush is righted by young Mabel (Lila Liu). She puts him in her backpack andr] then finds animals in other classrooms! 

A janitor sees Mabel and her large backpack and chases her to the school’s front door that has several teachers. One of them remarks, “She’s doing it again.” Mabel scrambles over the teachers! It ends with Mabel and her mother at the principal’s office. The shot is from kid’s height so it is like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons. Her mother leaves Mabel at her grandmother’s house. Grandma wears a green jacket with a Beaverton Wildlife Society patch. 

Grandma (Karen Huie) looks for Mabel who is up in Huie provided the Dog Lady’s voice in the animated movie, Abominable (2019). Mabel is sitting on a tree branch that is filled with yellow flowers. Grandma takes Mabel through some grass field to moss-covered rock. It is a orange and green moss. She tells Mabel about her anger. Grandma says, “You just gotta be very still, watch, and listen.” Very wise, meditation to calm yourself, epecially with nature around you. There is so many lessons to learn from this movie. Mabel hears frogs, ducks swimming, blue spiders, and a spider. 

Mabel asks if they can come back to the rock and Grandma says they can return every day and that it is their “special place.” They wander the woods, clean the sides of roads as drivers toss trash, the film doesn’t hit you over the head with an environmental message, it shows what goes on instead of tells you about it. In her car, Mabel’s mother wants to move across the country, but Mabel insists that Grandma needs her and stays in Beaverton. 

We see Grandma use a cane and then Mabel notices a medical band around her wrist. A serious illness. We move to the Present Day. Mabel is watching television coverage of the new Beaverton Beltway. There is no exact location of the town of Beaverton, but Beaverton, Oregon celebrated Hoppers Day! Major Jerry (Jon Hamm) is happy on the construction of the new beltway. Hamm voiced Louis in the cartoon show, Big City Greens (2018). Mabel now voiced by Piper Curda at 19 years old. Curda was on the Disney teen comedy, I Didn’t Do It. She can sing, Curda was in the Teen Beach 2 (2015), but the film’s songs are sadly not from any of the characters.  

Mabel skateboards through town with a cast on her right arm. A construction crew has placed dynamite along the beaver dam of Mabel’s Glade. She rushes onto the dam and then threatens to pull out the dynamite! Passing through the construction workers is Mayor Jerry. He has had many confrontations with Mabel, in flashback, we see her at city hall, in a park veranda, and even at his house! Mabel refuses to leave and then we see police body  carry her away! Jerry says that she has 48 hours to turn in a petition. 

The town residents ignore and reject Mabel’s petition. She wearily knocks on the door answered by an elderly man. He thinks she is from the senior center. Mabel helps around his house as she tells him about the animals of the Glade. Still, the petition doesn’t quite work out for Mabel. She then heads to Beaverton University. Mabel bursts into the classroom currently taught by Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimi). Part of the trio of witches, Mary Sanderson, was reprised by Najimi in Hocus Pocus 2 (2022). 

Dr. Sam says Mabel is enrolled in that class! Next to Dr. Sam is Nisha (Aparna Nancherla), her co-worker with suspicious eyes behind large glasses. Mabel explains about the petition, which she didn’t run through the classroom, but Dr. Sam says all of the animals are gone from The Glade. She says “they left when the resident beaver left”, the beaver is one of the keystone species. At The Glade, empty of water, Mabel sets up sticks in a pyramid shape and places vegetables around it. 

She places her phone playing the Sound of Rushing Water. The power for her phone fades as it turns to night. Mabel flashes back to arguing with her mother saying, “Mom, I’m not moving across the country.” She insists to stay because grandma needs her. It is not clear why her family moves away without Grandma who is independent. Mabel shares Grandma’s love of the wilderness, but it may be her family falls into the indifference of the townspeople. Out of the tall grass, a beaver crawls down to Mabel’s food! The beaver looks at it and continues on its way to the other side.  

The beaver reaches the road, a truck stops, and the beaver is taken into the truck! Mabel tries to follow the truck on her skateboard. The truck enters Beaverton University. The beaver scurries into the university, Mabel is right behind it, and the beaver uses a security card to enter a room! She also has to dodge Nisha who also goes into the room. Mabel sneaks in and sees the beaver placed on a disc. This wakens Dr. Sam in a chair. While she talks with Nisha, Mabel picks up the beaver, she is shocked that Dr. Sam is experimenting on animals, even knocking over a box of animal parts! 

She tries to rescue the beaver until Nisha tells her, “Mabel, you’re holding a robot!”She flips on the lab lights to showthe robot parts. Mabel sees a 3D scanner build a beaver. Dr. Sam explains that the plan is called Hoppers. Nisha takes out a bunny robot and points out that her head to the bunny’s head, “We put this into this”, then Dr. Sam joins her, very funny! Mabel says it is like Avatar which Dr. Sam says it is nothing like Avatar, funny! It deflects the comparison, but I actually think it is more like the animated Brother Bear (2003) where Kenai is put into a bear to understand the animal world. 

Dr. Sam tells Mabel that her early attempts had failed, she dressed in a beaver costume which scared away the animals. Then, a robot beaver, all metal, did the same. This was until Nisha and their colleague worked on the Hoppers program. Mabel has found a way to save The Glade and jumps into the chair. A device like a giant metal hair dryer heat shield drops down on Mabel’s head. The helmet runs her conscious through a cable to the robot beaver. A screen shows the status of the Hopping. This is interesting using technology to understand the nartural, animal, world. 

It is why Dr. Sam and other Hoppers failed to learn the animal world since they made a successful vessel, but only learn from the animal world through technology and observation, the outside looking in. Mabel is the only one because she can understand animals and their world. Her flaw though is her anger, too much animal nature, and learns the lesson her Grandma tried to teach her. She evades Nisha and Dr. Sam’s attempt to capture her and runs out of the building. Mabel hides in a grate until Dr. Sam and Nisha search in the night. Then, an owl snatches her up, Mabel can understand the owl, but she is dropped into the forest! 

Mabel wakes up in a pile of leaves to find she can understand all of the animals. She asks several animals about a beaver, but is ignored, just like the Beaverton citizens with her petition, but Mabel doesn’t easily give up. A spider points out the stream for her. Mabel finds a lazy beaver named Loaf (Eduardo Franco), sitting on a mound in the middle of the stream. Franco voiced Daryl in this year’s animated comedy, GOAT. It looks like Loaf has his eyes closed in an easy going slacker or loafer! Mabel tries to convince him to go to The Glade. Then, a bear rushes in to stuff Loaf into her mouth! 

Mabel jumps on the bear, Ellen, voiced by Melissa Villaseñor from Saturday Night Live. She also voiced Taffyta in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). So I have to note that I did not recognize any of the voice actors except Jon Hamm as the mayor, maybe because I saw him in a video clip. Loaf is happy with being eaten, but Mabel doesn’t understand that she broke Pond Rules. Ellen carries Mabel around in her mouth as the animals gather at the giant mound called the Super Lodge. Atop it is the beaver, King George (Bobby Moynihan), he has a dark upper lip like a moustache and a tiny crown. Moynihan is of course an SNL colleague, it is a mini-reunion, and voiced Forgetter Bobby in Inside Out 2 (2024). He played Panda in We Bare Bears.  

George, he is King of the Mammals, is introduced to Mabel. The animals welcome Mabel including Tom Lizard voiced by Tom Law. This is the first part for Law who was a storyboard artist for We Bare Bears. Tom Lizard is absurd with his frantic, happy waving so he is a break out character. His rolling black eyes makes him and other animals look like Muppets. She doesn’t know what is Pond Rules so George shows her around explaining the rules. He explains it is very crowde so they need rules, “Pond Rule number one, Don’t be a stranger.” George points out the names of all of the animals around him and greets them. 

One fish, Steve, says hello and is eaten by a bear. This introduces the second rule, “If you gotta eat, eat.” This explains the predator and prey cycle, but I’m certain is a rule parents will use for their kids or vice versa! The last rule is “We’re all in this together.” George explaisn that it means “you look out for others who need looking out for” stuffing a mouse into an overfilled hole. Love these rules that are very practical, but the last one I was certain would be connected to the High School Musical (2006) song, but nope, no tie-in.    

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