#25: HOPPERS

 

VOCALLY STARRING: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy and Dave Franco. Screenplay by Jesse Andrews, story by Daniel Chong and Jesse Andrews. Directed by Daniel Chong. Budget $150 million. Running time 105 minutes.

For 10 years, from 1995 until 2015 I watched every new Pixar film without fail, a total of 15 films, three of which made me cry, one which stunned me to its core thanks to its creativity, and one that remains on my top ten favourite films of all times. Sadly that legendary run faltered and I started to miss new Pixar releases, they just didn't resonate with me anymore, and it seemed to me that when once the Pixar mantra had been 'Story is King', it changed to 'Message is King', as each new film went out of its way to teach or preach at its young audience and I just didn't need to be preached at so I missed, and still haven't seen The good Dinosaur, Cars 3, Onward, Soul, Luca, Turning Red and Elio. indeed, Inside Out 2 was the last Pixar film I've seen at the cinema prior to this one, it was fun, but not necessary and sticked so closely to the classic Syd Mead three act structure that was it was just a generic sequel. Pixar didn't used to do those, but you know, Disney and their true mantra is 'Cash is the true King.' but that was it for me. 

Now, the announcement of a new Pixar film leaves me cold, or did until Hoppers. I was hooked by the trailer and the premise, it looked fun, fresh and fun and I was in!

And then I saw it.

Oh. Dear. What a disappointment, what a glorious-looking, visually stunning, and brilliantly animated film, but how generic, how average, how one note. There's a message, of course, and even that is about as fresh as three week old milk. The story sees Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), an animal-loving Japanese-American college student's mind transferred into the body of a robotic beaver. The robotic beaver gives the wearer the ability to talk to animals, so she promptly steals it and goes off into the wild to convince the beaver population to return to her dead grandmother's idyllic wildlife pond at the bottom of her house. Turns out the greedy mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) wants to use the site to complete his elevated ring-road around the city of Beaverton. Mabel discovers that each animal family has a king, and convinces King George, the beaver monarch (Bobby Moynihan) to unite the animal kingdom in an attempt to assassinate Jerry, using a great white shark, convinced his death will save the glade. Which in turn triggers Mabel to rethink her lifestyle choices and try to save the day. 

There's lots more going on, which I can't be arsed to try and synopsise, there's an evil villain, a human robot, a ridiculous car chase, a deeply frustrated human scientist trying to get her hands back on her animal robot, and a lot of stupid story rules that are shoehorned into proceedings only to be promptly ignored when the story demands.

I had thought, based on the trailer, that the robotic animal piloted by a human mind would be enough for a story, but sadly Pixar think that kids needs a wacky, outrageously stupid story to hang off the premise, so we get the whole environmental back story, the building of a ring road and all the rest.

It starts very well, the animation is a delight, there's a clever use of anime style to proceedings, and the Pixar look also works well here too, it looks great, the character design is fiesty and fun. Trouble is nowadays Pixar aren't the only show in town and with the likes of Blue Sky, Illumination Entertainment, Dreamworks, Sony Animation and a slew of others producing great looking and stylistic product, looking great just isn't enough anymore. This is the time when Story should be King.

Everything here is just so generic, the story so obvious, the plot beats seen a thousand times before. The conceit behind the story is so farcial, the human scientists watching Mabel in her Beaver robot interacting with animals, able to hear them talk and then witnessing the gathering of the animal kingdom royalty is ridiculous. Likewise the animals airlifting in a 3000lb Great White Shark to use as a smart bomb sounds hilarious but utterly shattered the created rules of this world. If you're going to create a science fiction story you have to have rules that work and you can't break them for the purposes of the plot. This doesn't so much jump the shark as drop it from a great height in an attempt to kill an innocent human. When the third act robot-walks into sight, and the true villian of the film is finally revealed the plot goes into overdrive and not only robs the film of all its borderline reality but ruins it completely with the introduction of a human robot suit that animals can use. 

There's a rule in comic publishing that you don't tell the reader on the cover that the comic is 'fun', 'funny', 'wacky' or 'crazy', a thing is either those things or it isn't and a reader will see through it and deem the object none of the above. The film wants everyone to think it's also all the above, but it's not. The idea behind is crazy, wacky, fun and a fantastic idea, but the film is anything but. The kids who sat watching this did so in stony silence and unmoved until the final act action bonanza specifically put there for the ankle biters to get excited. 

Also, call me old, but what the fuck happened to those glorious Pixar shorts that used to be screened before the film? 

Anyway, I've had enough, I've still got The Bride! to review, and a dog to walk, and it's only 8:00am.

This get a 6/10