Film

Pixar’s Bizarro Mashup of Avatar and Being John Malkovich Is Their Best Yet of the Decade

2 March 2026

Not to be too reductive, since the film itself references Avatar, but Hoppers is what happens if you smashed together James Cameron’s world with Being John Malkovich, except set in a story about eco-terrorism, infrastructure development, crony capitalism and electoral campaigns. Okay, maybe it is just like Avatar. Undoubtedly one of Pixar’s most bizarre outputs, it is also one of its best in recent years, and quite possibly its best this decade, on a pure barometer of fun and humor.

Daniel Chong’s lively, fast-paced, comically resplendent climate change allegory is pretty unhinged by children’s film standards. Suffice it to say that this is not as simple as a story of a teenage girl who finds a way to communicate with nature. The animal kingdom as depicted here has no basis in reality, but more closely resembles the sprawling universe of Game of Thrones (at one point a character even gets named the “paw” of the king).

Chong is working off of a script he co-wrote with Jesse Andrews (Luca) that is clear in its intentions but a bit diffuse in execution. Ostensibly, the film is a primer for young people to be empowered to fight systems that are accelerating the rate of global warming and environmental decay, though, sometimes, it feels a bit politically inscrutable. But the spirit is there, and in most senses, Hoppers is magnanimous and a true joy.

Hoppers Balances Big Time Allegory with Big Time Ridiculous Fun

Spirit is also something Mabel (Piper Curda) certainly doesn’t lack. A precocious young kid whose love of animals and intrinsic distrust of power led her to several thefts of school pets as a child, Mabel is long on righteous indignation and short on patience. She grows up with parents so absent they are mostly unseen from, and instead clings to a tender relationship with her grandmother (Karen Huie). Grandma Tanaka lives by a bucolic wetland, and, over years of intimate conversations atop a large rock, teaches her granddaughter about how to harness tranquility amongst the madness.

But in her late teens, Mabel has become even more distrustful of authority, and is a one-person crusader for eco justice. Her main adversary is Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm), whose re-election campaign signs bare a suspicious resemblance to President Trump’s. The two are so well-acquainted with each other that their confrontations have become petulant shouting matches. This time around, though, it’s personal: Mayor Jerry wants to build a new beltway over Grandma Tanaka’s former home, thus displacing an entire ecosystem of animals, all for the comically low four minutes of savings in traffic time.

All seems lost for the cause until Mabel accidentally discovers that her favorite professor, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy), has been working on an experimental technology which “hops” a human’s intelligence into a life-like animal robot which has communication ability with other animals, like a Star Trek universal translator. Mabel immediately seizes on the opportunity to jump into a beaver suit in order to convince other beavers to return to the swamp and re-start their civilization, in the hopes that their mere existence will put an abrupt end to Jerry’s development plans.

After some wacky dominoes, Mabel quickly ensconces herself in the community of this small pond, which has become overcrowded with animals of all species, all of whom displaced from climate change and callous construction done in the name of “progress.” Chong and Andrews make a mountain of adult themes digestible here in short order, including the all-important question of what the term “progress” even means if it comes at the cost of the natural order.

More importantly for kids, this is where the film really takes off comedically. In this odd new world, King George (Bobby Moynihan) presides over what is essentially the pond equivalent of a tenement building, enforcing strict “pond rules,” which mostly translates into treating your fellow animal with kindness. George leads his subjects in daily jazzercise from a beaten-up bright pink kid’s stereo system, one of many scraps found discarded by the humans.

In this world, Mabel learns that she can’t – and indeed doesn’t have to – fight the powers that be alone. Sure, that’s a simple message, but it’s also an effective one, especially at a time when it can feel overwhelming to pick any one area that needs help. Solidarity can be a beautiful thing. So can genuine cross-community friendship.

Daniel Chong’s film isn’t perfect, but it reaches such a strange fever pitch of hilarity and political prescience that it demands respect.

It’s odd, then, that the film eventually makes a confused argument for compromise, especially when that compromise is with a craven politician drunk on power. Jerry is not pure in his intentions, yet Chong positions him as movable with effective communication, and that’s a kind of naivety that doesn’t fit in the film’s otherwise anarchic structure.

Daniel Chong’s film isn’t perfect, but it reaches such a strange fever pitch of hilarity and political prescience that it demands respect. The world-building here is bananas and exciting, with feverishly funny voice performances from the likes of Meryl Streep, Aparna Nancherla, Sam Richardson and more. If this is the new direction Pixar can be expected to take moving forward, it’s a welcome return to a time of yore, when kids were trusted to pick up on important themes – all while laughing their heads off.