You often hear the phrase ‘Go outside and touch grass,” said online. With many of the happenings going on in our world, doing that is a way to recenter yourself or step away from the screen for a while. What many feel is that by getting back to nature, you realize that you can enjoy quiet moments, and we all need that. In Pixar’s latest, Hoppers, Piper Curda voices Mabel, a young girl who is trying to protect nature and sometimes lets her anger get the best of her.

From the beginning of the movie, the audience witnesses Mabel saving animals and repeatedly getting in trouble for doing so. The one person who understands and helps Mabel recenter is Grandma Tanaka, Karen Huie. When she is with Grandma, Mabel learns to sit quietly and is able to hear everything that is around her. She can hear the wind, the birds, and the stillness helps her to recenter herself.

In a sped-up montage, we see how this quiet time with Grandma Tanaka become important to Mabel. When she is older, Mayor Jerry, Jon Hamm, is looking to build a highway over her peacefull spot. Mabel is not having that and is trying to find a way to save the land. Because of all the noise from the construction, the animals have left the area. In her research with her professor, Dr. Sam, Kathy Najimy, she is told that a beaver is needed to inhabit the land and that will bring back the animals.

After following a suspicious beaver back to Dr. Sam laboratory, Mabel uncovers a hidden experiment that Dr. Sam was working on. In a rush to use it and save the land Mabel connects herself to the machine and transfers her brain into that of a robotic beaver. This causes Mabel to go into the wild and try to recruit a beaver to over back into the land that is going to be demolished. Mabel, thinks this will be an easy task but she learns a lot about “pond rules” and the connection between nature and the world she lives in.

The importance of friends

The heart of the movie lies in the working friendship between Mabel and King George, Bobby Moynihan. King George teaches Mabel the way of life in the pond and how they need the Council to make the decision about moving back. This causes a whole set of events that test Mabel and King George’s friendship and the survival of quiet place that she wants to save.

Mabel is living the dream that many people with pets would love to have. Imagine being able to talk to your pets and have them talk back to you. In these conversations with King George and the Council, Mabel realizes how the animals have no say in what happens to them and their homes. The animals can not fight for their land and decide to leave and find somewhere they can live in peace. This communication helps Mabel decide what she is going to do and reach out to Mayor Jeremy for help.

The themes in this movie will have you tearing up by the time the credits start to roll. In today’s age people do not take the time to sit down and shut the world off. Hopefully by the end of Hoppers people will start going outside again and putting their screens down for a few. I wish I was able to talk to my dog when she was around. Hoppers made me not only miss my pup, but realize that I need to spend more time being one with the world around me. Maybe as you walk out the theater, you will feel the same way too.

Final Thoughts: Hoppers is a fun and wild movie that shows the importance of nature and community. The voice cast is stellar, with Piper Curda and Bobby Moynihan being the heart of the film. Some hilarious moments in this feel strange for a Pixar movie, but fantastically work. You will laugh and cry while watching this film, and may look at nature in a new way afterwards. Make sure to stay for the mid and after credits scenes. Tom Lizard is my favorite character of the bunch!

Violence: For a Pixar movie, there are a few elements that are a bit shocking. These have to do with the council and the Insect Queen and her son. There is a forest fire that is a bit frightening, but nothing too violent.

Kid Friendly: The themes os nature, unity, and controlling anger are great for kids of all ages. Pixar does a great job of balancing a lesson about the importance of nature and family.

In Disney and Pixar’s all-new animated comedy adventure “Hoppers,” animal lover Mabel (voice of Piper Curda) seizes an opportunity to use a new technology to ‘hop’ her consciousness into a life-like robotic beaver and communicate directly with animals. As she uncovers mysteries in the animal world beyond anything she could have imagined, Mabel befriends charismatic beaver, King George (voice of Bobby Moynihan), and must rally the entire animal kingdom to face a major, imminent human-threat: smooth-talking local mayor Jerry Generazzo (voice of Jon Hamm).