' HOPPERS ' GO HOPPING : FILM REVIEW SNIPPET

RETURN TO FORM ........ ALMOST. Even though it is no masterpiece, Hoppers might have the kinetic momentum and touch of the absurd to pull the legendary Pixar out of its slump.

WITH HOPPERS, Pixar pulls off a minor miracle : realigning its trajectory away from delivering bog-standard animated features.

The once-gold-standard studio's recent streak has been creative, not just financial. The billion-dollar hauls of Toy Story 3 [ 2010 ] and Toy Story 4 [ 2019 ], Finding Dory [ 2016 ], Incredibles 2 [ 2018 ] and COCO [ 2017 ] have been offset by big-time financial losers such as: The Good Dinosaur [ 2015 ], Cars 3 [ 2017 ], Lightyear [ 2022 ], Elemental [ 2023 ] and Elio [ 2025 ] - the last three arriving back-to-back.

The Midas touch nearly returns - especially storytelling wise - with this new, if slightly familiar tale. 

It follows 19-year-old Mabel Tanaka [ Piper Curda ] and her aggressive, wildlife saving crusade against Mayor Jerry [ Jon Hamm ], a not-so-evil politician bent on paving a motorway through a forest.

Because this is a children's fantasy, Mabel's desperate, eccentric actions soon take a fantastical turn.

Her soul is transferred into the body of a robotic beaver, courtesy of her college professor's [ Kathy Najimy ] hush-hush experiment.

The villain - a caterpillar destined for butterfly status - is voiced by Dave Franco, with Meryl Streep as his mother, the Queen Butterfly.

Sharing the lead with Mabel is King George [ Bobby Moynihan ], an optimistic beaver monarch, who helps steer the film's emotional core while delivering the few genuine, thoroughly unexpected moments of laugh-out-loud comedy.

While the nature-loving message - and to a lesser extent, the plot - feels somewhat similar to DreamWorks The Wild Robot [ 2024 ], which sits a big hop higher, Hoppers is good enough to pull Pixar out of the slump.

The story is infused with a kinetic momentum and a touch of the absurd that keeps you hooked.

The World Students Society thanks Mohammad Kamran Jawaid.