Hoppers (U)

The beaver finally gets its much deserved spotlight in Pixar’s utterly charming and impossibly cute animated adventure.

Our hero here is Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda): an Asian-American girl with anime hair and a fire in her belly. Her rebellious spirit constantly gets her into trouble, but she finds a kind of peace and serenity with her grandma (Karen Huie), who teaches her to quietly witness the beauty of nature at a glade near her house.

But when Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) intends to destroy this glade to make way for a bypass, Mabel realises that the only way to stop him legally is to repopulate the glade with the beavers and other animals who have mysteriously vanished. Luckily she stumbles upon a high-concept bit of technology: the university she attends has created hyper-realistic animal robots that can be piloted by humans. Dubbed “hopping”, she transfers her consciousness to a dam-building critter to convince the other animals to fight back.

Pixar’s magic is once again on full display; they effortlessly weave cutesy animal hijinks with important moral messages. It’s an absolute joy for all ages.