I REALLY liked this movie, the best Pixar movie in years for me. To be fair, maybe that's just because of me being an environmentalist myself, but hey, in the end, reviews here are supposed to be subjective, I guess!

The town’s mayor wants to built a beltway around his city, and it’s almost complete. The only missing segment is over a lake that has been dammed by some now absent beavers. “Mabel” is determined to thwart the constructors, but with all the animal life having seemingly relocated to pastures/ponds new there seems little she can do to stop their dynamiting. Then she learns that if she can reintroduce some wild critters to the waters, then it will be saved. How, though? Well one evening she espies one but it doesn’t like the look of the new surroundings and moves on. She follows it and after a bit of subterfuge, finds herself in a secret laboratory where her college teacher has perfected a scientific technique to link human brains to robotic bodies and so recreate animal. “Mabel” is not to be stopped on her quest, and so promptly finds herself with a new fur coat and introduced to the mammal king “George” who now hosts all the displaced from the motorway. She knows that she must get him and his fellow monarchs from above and below the water to ally if she is to have any chance of restoring the equilibrium of nature. what chance she can rally them all to defeat the bulldozers, though? The environmental message is all pretty blunt, but it is delivered in an amiable fashion with some fun (and puns) from the writing, a lovely scene depicting regal succession in the insect world and even a flying shark as we are gently reminded that humanity is but one of the creatures that lives on our Earth. This also manages to stay clear of sentimentality - not always so easy when the plot is all about all things furry, feathery or fishy, and it’s also refreshing in it’s targeting of the civic administration as the “baddie” here, rather than just opting for those pesky and evil corporate types. It’s reminding us that as usual, it is our own convenience that usually drives projects that destroy and/or pollute the natural resources we all need to survive. The animation is all fairly standard, but it is of an high standard and this has enough for the grown-ups amongst us to keep it worth a watch.

entertainment movie, not so engaging but one time watch is good.

Hoppers is fantastically animated, with some impressively high comedic moments, but its clunky story and funky exploration of morality keep it from being one of the Pixar greats.