Hoppers - Funny & Entertaining With Simple Enough Story But Still Have Plenty of Heart Warming Moments

This week there were a lot of new movies released in Indonesian cinemas. I think since the operators wanted to focus on local films starting from next week as it is nearing the biggest holiday season in Indonesia, they opted to show them now while international movies will be available in 2 weeks time. My wife and I had another movie marathon yesterday and saw this one first. OK I'll just get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda - The Wretched, I Didn't Do It TV series etc) had been living in Beaverton since her childhood years and loved all animals especially the ones in the glade. However when mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm - Transformers One, Baby Driver etc) decided to build freeway passing through the glade, Mabel was adamant not to allow it happen as the animals had to move out. When Mabel found that her biology professor Dr. Sam Fairfax (Kathy Najimi - Sister Act, Veronica's Closet TV series etc) was conducting science experiment that would allow a person's mind to be transferred to an animal-like robot, she somehow got herself to be part of it and hopped to the body of a beaver. 

By using the body, Mabel managed to convince King George the beaver (Bobby Moynihan - Mr. Mayor TV series, Unfrosted etc) to return to the glade with the colony. However it proved to be not as easy with the resistance from the Mayor and Dr. Sam who did not want Mabel to destruct the natural order. 

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Honestly I was interested in watching this movie since I saw its brief trailer few times earlier which looked really funny. As shown in the trailer, my wife and I basically knew the main plot of transferring human's mind into the animal's body. What we did not know was obviously the reason and all the hilarity that would come after that which made us laughed many times. Like many Pixar films, this one also had some emotional moments even not too long from the start where the focus was on Mabel's childhood years (voiced by Lila Liu) and her lovely relationship with her grandmother (Karen Huie), plus the background of how she became such an animal lover. There were also plenty of touching moments in the middle and towards the end that affected my wife.

I actually like the story here as it was not very complicated and should be easy to understand even for the young. It was very original based on the screenplay by Jesse Andrews (Luca) together with Daniel Chong (creator of We Bare Bears and storyboard artist of several Pixar movies) who also directed this movie in his directorial debut. Though the plot started simple of just saving the glade, but it became heavier as it progressed. It did however still showed the wonderful friendship between Mabel and King George with a very big climax and nice ending. Oh talking about the ending, there were a mid end credit scene and also a brief yet funny post end credit scene.

Once again the voice cast did amazing job here and provided convincing characterization. In addition to the above, there were many in support roles such as Meryl Streep (Don't Look Up, Out of Africa etc) as Butterfly queen and Dave Franco (Now You See Me: Now You Don't, The Lego Ninjago Movie etc) as her son Titus, Steve Purcell as amphibian king, Eduardo Franco (Stranger Things season 4 etc) as Loaf the beaver, Melissa Villasenor (Max & The Midknights TV series etc) as Ellen the bear, Aparna Nancherla (The Great North TV series etc) with Sam Richardson (Veep TV series etc) as Dr. Sam's colleagues Nisha and Conner respectively and several others. And the animation here was still as beautiful as other Pixar movies especially during the arrival of the animal council and the lifelike face expressions and so on.

I am also glad to read that critics and audience were impressed with the movie. Hopefully it would be a great success commercially so Pixar would still be inclined to make original films to entertain us. There is however the matter of big budget which really surprised me as it had a hefty one of around USD 150 million (way more than other computer animated movies from other studio). Btw, I found out that this movie was teased in the end credit scene of Elio but I completely forgotten about it. Overall this was one entertaining and fun Pixar movie with lots of adventure and heart and provided us plenty of hilarious moments, yet still have some heart warming scenes. So if you want to bring the whole family to watch this, I am quite sure you would enjoy this just like my wife and I did.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars