“Hoppers”, the latest animation feature film from Pixar Animation Studios, is more entertaining than I expected. When I watched its trailer several weeks ago, it looked like another typical animation film to watch and then forget, but the film turns out to have more humor and gravitas than it seemed at first. Although it still does not reach to the level of the best achievements of Pixar Animation Studios, the film is one or two steps above most of its recent outputs during last several years at least, and that is surely something nice to see.

The heroine of the story is Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda), a 19-year-old Japanese American college student who has loved and cared a lot about animals since she was a little girl. While her parents did not understand this that much, her grandmother was willing to understand and then encourage Mabel to love nature and animals more, and there is a brief but sweet moment when she and her granddaughter spend some peaceful time at a little glade filled with many different animals.

However, Mabel’s grandmother passed away several years later, and then there comes a big issue in Mabel’s life. That special spot of her and her grandmother is going to be destroyed just because the mayor of the city wants to build a big highway circling around their city, and the mayor and Mabel have been clashing with each other a lot over this matter, though it looks like there is really nothing she can do for stopping the mayor’s ambitious construction project. For example, the mayor was allowed to build the highway on the glade mainly because there is no animal to be endangered there, and Mabel is baffled about how that spot can be totally empty without any animal at present.

And then she finds a possible way to solve her issue when she happens to learn about the research project of a biology professor in her college, who has been studying on animals via her special animal robots to which a human mind can be transferred. Yes, as humorously pointed out at one point, this is not so different from “Avatar” (2009), and Mabel soon finds her mind transferred to a little beaver robot, and she is certainly delighted when she can communicate with animals now.

For restoring the ecology of the glade, Mabel needs to persuade beavers first, and, what do you know, the king of the local mammals turns out to be a jolly beaver named King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan), who cheerfully welcomes Mabel into his small animal kingdom. Thanks to King George, Mabel comes to know more about the hidden world of animals, and that makes her more determined to fight against the mayor and his ambitious highway project.

Needless to say, things become more complicated as our heroine attempts to accomplish her goal as soon as possible. While there is a little secret behind how the highway project was permitted from the beginning, Mabel’s attempt to motivate many different animals ranging from birds and fishes to reptiles and amphibians leads to a much more serious consequence than expected. Above all, she keeps hiding her true identity from King George and her several animal friends even at that point, and she becomes all the more conflicted when King George shows her more trust and care than before.

Now this sounds rather predictable, but the screenplay by Jesse Andrews, which is developed from the story written by him and director Daniel Chong, keeps the plot rolling via some nice plot turns coupled with a series of inspired comic moments. In case of one particular action sequence, I was amused by how it is sometime reminiscent of “The Birds” (1963), and then I was tickled more by the unexpected appearance of some big animal.

While steadily entertaining us in one way or another, the story also focuses on Mabel’s personal drama along the story. We come to have more understanding on why she is so occupied with her and her grandmother’s special place, and we also come to root for her more even though she inadvertently causes a much bigger trouble later in the story. In the end, she comes to learn some good lessons via her bumpy adventure, and that makes the finale quite touching.

Piper Curda’s plucky voice performance holds the center as required, and she is also supported well by a number of notable voice cast members of the film. While Bobby Moynihan brings a lot of humor and heart to his beaver character, John Hamm is suitably slick and confident as the mayor, and Sam Richardson, Dave Franco, Meryl Streep, and Isiah Whitlock Jr., who sadly passed away several months ago, are also well-cast in their respective supporting parts.

On the whole, “Hoppers” is surprisingly funny and enjoyable even though it does not reach to the high standard of those classic animation films from Pixar Animation Studios. Compared to the literal emotional complexity of “Inside Out” (2015) or the colorful poignancy of “Coco” (2017), it feels a bit too slight at times in terms of story and character, but it is relatively better than the mildly engaging result of “Elio” (2025). I gave “Elio” 3 stars despite that, so I guess I should give “Hoppers” 3.5 stars (I am getting more tired of this star rating, you know), but we can all agree that Pixar Animation Studios has not lost any of its storytelling skills yet.