I will continue to update this post as the score changes.
Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: Verified Hot
Audience Says: N/A
| Audience | Score | Number of Reviews | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verified Audience | 94% | 500+ | 4.6/5 |
| All Audience | 91% | 1,000+ | 4.5/5 |
Verified Audience Score History:
- 94% (4.6/5) at 500+
Rotten Tomatoes: Certified Fresh
Critics Consensus: An eager beaver for endearment that has the charm to back it up, Hoppers is a sprightly riot that might just be the funniest entry in the Pixar canon yet.
| Critics | Score | Number of Reviews | Average Rating (Unofficial) |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Critics | 93% | 137 | |
| Top Critics | 97% | 30 |
Metacritic: 73 (40 Reviews)
Sample Reviews:
Sara Michelle Fetters, MovieFreak.com 3.5/4 – Pixar returns to the head of the animation class with Hoppers, a vibrant, imaginative, and, best of all, exceedingly funny flight of zany madness that is sure to send audiences out of the theater sporting a gigantic smile.
Mark Kermode, Kermode and Mayo's Take (YouTube) – It's heart is in the right place and it's good fun.
Peter Travers, The Travers Take 3/4 – Even when it hops off course, this animated gem is funny and fierce in all the right places. Pixar is back, baby. Haters deserve a good squishing.
Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times – Hoppers possesses that certain charm that comes with pudgy beavers and dastardly caterpillars, and a touch of weird humor beside. Cute animals and a little absurdity can make any mildly overcrowded plot more watchable.
Rafer Guzman, Newsday 3/4 – Disney-Pixar’s latest balances a familiar plot with endearing characters and a hopeful message.
Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle 3/5 – You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn what a keystone species is.
Danny Leigh, Financial Times 3/5 – The movie is invested with care and energy, sprinkled with gags and neat flights of fancy.
Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News 3.5/4 – Hoppers doesn’t have the emotional depth of “Toy Story,” but that’s not its purpose. This one makes you laugh and gasp and even question the audacity of what you just saw before. Go see it.
Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict – Kudos to Andrews for avoiding two clichéd tropes that Pixar seems to love: there’s no seemingly-benign authority figure who later turns out to be evil, and the two best-friend protagonists don’t have a falling-out just to prompt the final act.
Philip De Semlyen, Time Out 4/5 – Smart storytelling and snappy editing elevate the jokes and enrich the emotions… The animation, bursting with autumnal colours, is a delight too. It won’t save the planet but it just might fire up a new generation of Mabels. Go to Full Review
Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press 3.5/4 – “Hoppers” might still feel fairly distant from the heights of peak Pixar; It’s also a big, joyful leap in the right direction.
Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post 3/4 – What separates “Hoppers” from the pack of recent Pix flix, which have been wholesome as a church bake sale, is its comic irreverence. Director Daniel Chong’s original movie is terribly funny.
Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven C+ – Hoppers is one of the best Pixar movies in recent years, though the script does feel slight in character motivations. However, the delightful voice cast led by Curda and Moynihan are great, and the movie is at its best when it's weird.
Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture – A fun, modest little movie with enough zip and charm to keep kids engaged, and as such, one doesn’t want to criticize it too much. But the memory of what Pixar once was… may still make us wonder where all that energy and originality and artistry went.
John Nugent, Empire Magazine 4/5 – Don’t call it a comeback — but this is really strong stuff from Pixar: funny, thoughtful, sweet, making for a heartfelt paean to nature, and beavers in particular. Dam good.
Aparita Bhandari, Globe and Mail – Like many of its Pixar predecessors, Hoppers manages to thread the needle between a charming story for a young audience and a considered take on the climate crisis that will also resonate for their adult caregivers.
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle 3/4 – While Pixar doesn’t exactly alter the chemistry here, “Hoppers” is energetic and fun. What makes it worthy is that Chong has an authentic interest in the animals’ interaction with humans, and brings feeling to that conflict.
Tim Grierson, Screen International.- Sometimes the convoluted story forces its emotional beats, but Hoppers is a largely successful animation that introduces a refreshingly darker strain of humour alongside its paeans to the natural world.
Kevin Maher, The Times (UK) 3/5 – There’s lots of fun here, some of the one-liners are exquisite and the helter-skelter finale is delightfully overstuffed. Frustratingly, it’s still second-grade Pixar.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian 4/5 – The film perhaps suffers from a loss of nerve about how villainous to make the villain, but it zaps along very entertainingly.
Billie Melissa, Newsweek – "Hoppers" is thoughtful, heartfelt, and profound in a way that warms you in a divisive world.
Nell Minow, RogerEbert.com 4/4 – 'Hoppers’ is Pixar at its best, a story with warmth, humor, exciting action, endearing characters, and a reassuringly expansive notion of community.
Linda Marric, HeyUGuys 5/5 – Wildly inventive, visually stunning, and laugh-out-loud hilarious, Hoppers is not just a return to form; it’s Pixar at full creative power. I cannot wait to watch it again and again.
Clarisse Loughrey, Independent (UK) 4/5 – Odd and spiky enough to carve out its own niche. Pixar, certainly, have only benefited from the energetic, expressive influence of anime on western animation. All their creatures leap around the screen like they’ve just been electrocuted.
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter – It shouldn’t all hang together as well as it does, but the movie’s freewheeling plotting is exhilarating, even more so when a frantic chase accelerates the action.
Matt Singer, ScreenCrush 6/10 – Pixar’s latest has a couple fun gags, an uplifting theme, and a very messy story.
Owen Gleiberman, Variety – “Hoppers” never stops surprising you in rudely antic ways, and that’s the essence of its delight.
William Bibbiani, TheWrap – 'Hoppers' isn’t just James Cameron’s 'Avatar' if it had feelings, it’s also James Cameron’s 'Avatar' if it was good.
Wilson Chapman, IndieWire B+ – There’s not enough time to deepen the sweet friendship between Mabel and George into something as powerful as, say, Merlin and Dory in “Finding Nemo.” Still, what we do get is pretty uniformly delightful.
Eli Friedberg, Slant Magazine 2/4 – It falls well short of providing any satisfying exploration of its weighty theme of persuasion versus violence in the face of oppression.
SYNOPSIS:
What if you could talk to animals and understand what they’re saying? In Disney and Pixar’s all-new feature film “Hoppers,” scientists have discovered how to “hop” human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals as animals!
The adventure introduces Mabel, an animal lover who seizes an opportunity to use the technology, uncovering mysteries within the animal world that are beyond anything she could have imagined.
CAST:
- Piper Curda as Mabel
- Bobby Moynihan as King George
- Jon Hamm as Mayor Jerry
- Meryl Streep as Insect Queen
- Dave Franco as Titus
- Kathy Najimy as Dr. Sam
- Eduardo Franco as Loaf
- Melissa Villaseñor as Ellen
- Ego Nwodim as Fish Queen
- Vanessa Bayer as Diane
- Sam Richardson as Conner
- Aparna Nancherla as Nisha
- Nichole Sakura as Reptile Queens
- Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Bird King
- Steve Purcell as Amphibian King
- Karen Huie as Grandma Tanaka
- Tom Law as Tom Lizard
DIRECTED BY: Daniel Chong
SCREENPLAY BY: Jesse Andrews
PRODUCED BY: Nicole Paradis Grindle
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Pete Docter, Peter Sohn, Kiri Hart
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jeremy Lasky, Ian Megibben
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Bryn Imagire
VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR: Beth Albright
STORY SUPERVISORS: John Cody Kim, Madeline Sharafian
ANIMATION SUPERVISOR: Alon Winterstein
EDITED BY: Axel Geddes
MUSIC BY: Mark Mothersbaugh
RUNTIME: 105 Minutes
RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2026
by chanma50