Hoppers 2026 Movie Review Trailer

Daniel Chong's brisk comedy about an environmental activist who infiltrates the animal kingdom feels like Pixar's first film since "Turning Red" to offer something truly new from the studio.

There's a famous scene in "The Lion King" where the feline prince Simba, still learning the responsibilities he will assume as ruler of the Pride Lands, listens to his wise father Mufasa describe the Circle of Life that governs the animals of this paradise: lions may eat the antelopes that roam the fields, but their bodies become the grass that the antelopes eat. "In that way, we are all connected in the great circle of life," Mufasa extols, as the camera focuses on a shot of the beautiful savanna landscape.

Director: Daniel Chong
Writers: Daniel Chong, Jesse Andrews
Stars: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm

“Hoppers,” Pixar’s latest film and its best opening in a decade, also deals with the struggles of an animal king defending his subjects, whose story, briefly alluded to (claiming the throne after his uncle usurped his father), bears a probably not coincidental resemblance to Simba’s story arc. But this monarch—the goofy, sweetly optimistic, 80s-pop-rock-loving beaver King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan)—is a far less regal figure than Mufasa, and his domain, a small pond in the forest teeming with too many animals to sustain him properly, is much more modest. 

George’s version of the Circle of Life, the “Pond Rules” he imposes on his subjects, is far less poetic and far more practical: “If you have to eat, eat.” Another difference between the two films: in “The Lion King,” Mufasa may have talked about eating the antelopes, but the audience never saw it. Like most animated films that humanize animals, turning them into funny and friendly characters, “The Lion King” perhaps didn’t want to tarnish the fantasy it offered with the reality that Simba would be more inclined to eat Timon and Pumbaa than befriend them.

In “Hoppers,” all the carnage and violence inherent in the animal kingdom are displayed in a gloriously casual way. When the protagonist Mabel (Piper Curda), a 19-year-old environmental activist who has “jumped” into the body of a lifelike robotic beaver, infiltrates this forest ecosystem for the first time, she saves the sloth Loaf (Eduardo Franco) from being eaten by the grizzly bear Ellen (Melissa Villaseñor), even though he protested that he didn’t care. As George takes Mabel on a tour of his kingdom, Ellen devours a fish, while a cute worm is abruptly snatched away by a bird descending from the sky. Midway through the film, there's a display of violence between mammals and insects so abrupt and visceral that it's somewhat frightening and, perhaps, the funniest scene Pixar has ever animated.

"Hoppers" arrives in theaters when the once-powerful studio has lost its luster, its trajectory alternating between sequels that are mere shadows of their predecessors and original films like "Elio" or "Elemental," which felt limited and formulaic—attempts to recapture the heartwarming, high-concept experience people expect from Pixar without taking any real risks. The decline in the brand's prestige perhaps gave "Hoppers" the freedom to be something much more modest, and also much funnier and more satisfying: a hilarious comedy, with jokes every second, moments of sweetness and emotional resonance, but one that doesn't try to make you cry.

While much of the studio's recent output feels like it was made by just anyone, "Hoppers" is Pixar's first film since 2022's "Turning Red" to feature a strong and distinct creative voice. Director Daniel Chong began making the film after the end of his Cartoon Network series "We Bare Bears," a comedy about three wild Bay Area bears trying, unsuccessfully, to integrate into human society. Much of that series' DNA has carried over to Chong's feature film debut, a quirky and humorous look at the animal kingdom with a touch of cringe-worthy comedy that revels as much in how gross and silly mammals can be—with their squeaky voices and body oils—as in how adorable they are.

And they are adorable. Pixar's animation style, which in recent years has veered toward the gorgeous but generic, is refreshed here. There are still moments of ostentatious technical prowess (including scenes with crowds where thousands of butterflies flutter across the screen at once), but the round, adorable animal designs are refreshingly simple. A clever touch: the animals have more detailed designs when viewed from their perspective, and their eyes are small, expressionless blacks when viewed from a human perspective.

What fueled many episodes of "We Bare Bears" was the relationship between the natural world and the monotony of modern life, and that's also the tension that runs through "Hoppers," a story with a deep environmental awareness that never becomes overly preachy. The film opens with Mabel, who (barely) attends the local college in her hometown of Beaverton, organizing a one-woman campaign against the construction of a high-speed rail line ordered by the sycophantic Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm, perfect for this role) as an attempt to secure his reelection.

Her protest, disrupting construction and going door-to-door collecting signatures for the petition, focuses on its environmental impact, but it's deeply personal for her: the train will cut through a now-abandoned clearing near her late grandmother's house, the place where she, as a misunderstood child who spent her recesses trying to get the school's tortoise out of class, learned to stop, listen, and love nature. But now, with the glade abandoned, the only hope of halting construction is for Mabel to find a beaver—a keystone species—that can make the area habitable again.

And this is where Hoppers technology comes in, an experiment designed by Mabel's burnt-out biology teacher, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy). Designed to perfect the art of studying animals incognito—there's a great montage of all the invention's less technological predecessors—the machine puts the user in the body of an adorable orange-furred beaver and gives them the ability to talk to all animals, from spiders in their webs to fish in the sea. In a very funny joke, but presumably also to preempt sarcastic comments online, Dr. Sam insists that "there's nothing like 'Avatar'" just before Mabel steals the technology to take her campaign to save the glade's animals straight to the source.

If there's one major flaw in "Hoppers," it's that it packs so much plot into its 100-minute runtime that you wish it would stay in one place longer. After Mabel slips into her robotic beaver body, the film hurtles forward, shifting from a weary outsider to a Joan of Arc-esque revolutionary figure, and finally to the animals, all in a single scene. With a large cast of animals and humans alike, and an entire second half devoted to battling a council bent on "crushing" humanity, there isn't enough time to develop the sweet friendship between Mabel and George into something as powerful as, say, Merlin and Dory in "Finding Nemo."

Even so, what we do get is quite charming. The screenplay for "Hoppers," attributed to Jesse Andrews and based on a story by Chong, boasts impeccable comedic timing, from gags that achieve the Sideshow Bob effect, with just the right duration to return to normal, to witty, concise lines that perfectly cap off the scene.

It's important to note that the film's humor is always situational and based on the peculiar personalities surrounding the stubborn, heterosexual woman played by Mabel. For example, a standout sequence in which Mabel's attempts to communicate with Jerry via text-to-speech on her phone are thwarted by George and the other animals, who kidnap him after discovering emojis. It's chaos, and it only works because each of the characters is instantly relatable.

There's a famous scene in "The Lion King" where the feline prince Simba, still learning the responsibilities he will assume as ruler of the Pride Lands, listens to his wise father Mufasa describe the Circle of Life that governs the animals of this paradise: lions may eat the antelopes that roam the fields, but their bodies become the grass that the antelopes eat. "In that way, we are all connected in the great circle of life," Mufasa extols, as the camera focuses on a shot of the beautiful savanna landscape.

"Hoppers," Pixar's latest film and its best opening in a decade, is also a film about the burdens of an animal king defending his subjects, whose backstory, briefly alluded to (claiming the throne after his uncle usurped his father), bears a likely not coincidental resemblance to Simba's story arc. But this monarch—the goofy, sweetly optimistic, 80s pop-rock-loving beaver King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan)—is far less regal than Mufasa, and his domain, a small pond in the forest teeming with animals to sustain him, is much more modest.

Watch Hoppers 2026 Movie Trailer