"Hoppers breaches what, at this point, feels too prescient to ignore: the question of how not to be consumed by despair, even in our formative years. What's a kid meant to do with all that rage against the machine inside their head? All this gloom is, of course, communicated via the fluffiest of stratagems: the North American beaver."
"It's about a robotic beaver with the transferred consciousness of 19-year-old environmentalist, Mabel (Piper Curda), as she builds a resistance movement out of the local wildlife to stop the mayor (Jon Hamm) from carving up their glade-side homes for a highway that will cut commute times by a whole (gasp) five minutes."
"Pixar, certainly, have only benefited from the energetic, expressive influence of anime on western animation. All their creatures leap around the screen like they've just been electrocuted. It's worth noting, too, that the degree of life-like fluffiness Pixar achieves with beaverfied Mabel makes Monsters Inc look positively primitive."
Hoppers addresses existential themes central to Pixar's recent work, specifically how to manage despair during formative years. The film follows Mabel, a 19-year-old environmentalist whose consciousness is transferred into a robotic beaver, as she organizes local wildlife to prevent a mayor from destroying their habitat for a highway that saves only five minutes of commute time. While the premise echoes Avatar's environmental themes, the film establishes its own identity through distinctive animation influenced by anime, featuring expressive, energetic character movement and remarkably detailed fur rendering. The animal kingdom operates under absolute monarchy, with different species represented by crowned rulers, adding layers of world-building to this unconventional narrative about resistance and environmental activism.
#environmental-activism #mental-health-and-despair #animation-innovation #coming-of-age-themes #pixar-films
Read at The Independent
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