“Hoppers” might be my favorite movie of all time.
It’s for sure my favorite movie of this year, which, yeah, it’s only March, but it’s going to be tough for any other film to top this one. I like it so much I’ve seen it in the theater twice.
The first time, my husband and I took our two youngest kids so our oldest and her friends could hang in our house without parents lurking around every corner. We went to the movie frankly because we just needed somewhere to go and because we’re all movie theater popcorn enthusiasts.
My expectation for “Hoppers” was the expectation I have for all kids movies, which is “good enough.” I was certainly not expecting to laugh, gasp, and cry. But I did all three.
And then I took my oldest under the guise of it not being fair that she missed out the first time. Really I just wanted to see it again. We went to a sold-out 8:10 screening, and as far as I could tell, my daughter was the only actual child in the theater. Everyone else was an adult with hipster energy, which confirmed what I had suspected — “Hoppers” is a cinematic sensation, not just a movie made to sell Saturday matinee tickets and merchandise.
The movie has grossed $168,677,616 worldwide, making it the most successful opening of a Pixar original in a decade. On its second weekend, the box-office sales were only down 36%, indicating a strong word-of-mouth hold. It has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and every review I’ve come across has praised how unexpected it is. The most common word I’ve heard used to describe it has been “insane.”
And that’s an accurate descriptor. Especially if you go in blind like I did. But if you simply must know, the movie is an animated sci-fi comedy about Mabel, a passionate animal lover who discovers that scientists have developed a way to “hop” human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals — allowing people to communicate with wildlife as if they were animals themselves. Mabel attempts to use this technology to stop her town’s mayor from constructing a beltway through animal habitats. Shenanigans, obviously, ensue.
As straightforward as that summary seems, I never at any point in the movie could predict what was going to happen next. What started out as a typical Pixar story of looking out for the little guy — Mabel attempts to free all of her school’s classroom pets — and finding allies in identity — her grandmother takes her under her wing and instills in her an appreciation for the local glade — quickly takes a sharp left turn into wacky, science fiction-y, and very funny territory.
The plot includes an accidental political assassination, a near shark-attack, and some light body horror, all while remaining appropriate for children. The voice actors, many of whom are “Saturday Night Live” alumni, add the perfect amount of dimension to their characters, and Jon Hamm, who voices Jerry the Mayor, gives just as much gravitas to the role as he gave Don Draper in “Mad Men.” The movie takes more unexpected turns than a driver using Apple Maps in 2012, and ends on a note that is sweet without being saccharine.
But what impressed me most about “Hoppers” was the way the creators’ bridged the gap between the anthropomorphized, sanitized, and often overly-shiny world of animals in many movies made for children that fail to adequately prepare them for the wild world outside their front doors, and the devastating reality of nature’s brutality as seen in every single episode of Planet Earth.
Any parent who has had to google “local child psychologists” after innocently watching a National Geographic special with their children can appreciate “Hoppers’” ability to reckon with the fact that animals do, in fact, eat other animals.
The animals, led by a king beaver named George, have a law in their habitat called “pond rules,” that states when an animal is hungry, it eats. And, indeed, an earthworm is mid-sentence in conversation with Mabel, who has at this point in the movie transformed into a beaver (don’t worry about it), when it is swiftly scooped in a bird’s talon and consumed It was a moment that caused my audiences to first gasp, then laugh.
They gasped and laughed even harder when (SPOILER WARNING) Mabel, still in Beaver form, accidentally squishes a monarch butterfly, who is in fact a monarch, as in royal, butterfly as in king of the insects. I’m just now getting the joke. This movie is the gift that keeps on giving.
“Oh my gosh,” someone said out loud in the theater during my second viewing. Then we all laughed, both at the seemingly spontaneous exclamation and what we had just seen on screen.
For a moment I wondered if it was maybe a touch over the line for kids. And then I realized it was just enough. Just dark and weird enough to make them feel like the movie was trusting them with something real.
The adults filling that theater on Tuesday night were a testament to “Hoppers’” universal appeal. But the children it was made for are the ones who need it most — or maybe it’s their parents who need it most. The parents who will one day have to explain why dogs die, why birds eat baby sea turtles, why every nature documentary is mildly to very traumatic, and why the world is still worth loving anyway.
“Pond rules,” we can explain. And then buy tickets to a third screening.