Hoppers

Story

As a young child, Mabel (voice of Lila Liu) gets very angry at injustice, particularly against animals, and she’s often in trouble at school. Her grandmother (Karen Huie) teaches Mabel to be still and immerse herself in nature at their special place, which is called Beaverton Glade. They sit and watch the animals emerge, which calms Mabel’s fiery nature.

Years later, as a university student, Mabel (Piper Curda) is very upset to discover that the local mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), plans to destroy Beaverton Glade and erect a highway across the river. Mabel tries her best to encourage neighbours to protest, without any luck. They tell her all the animals are gone from the glade anyway.

Mabel returns to the glade and thinks this is true – when she sees a lone beaver. The beaver turns out to be a robot, which contains the mind of Mabel’s university professor, Dr Sam (Kathy Najimy), using a technology Dr Sam invented called ‘hopping’. Mabel forces her way into the hopping machine and becomes the beaver. From there, she discovers the terrible truth behind the animals’ departure from the glade, and she’s determined to reverse this with the help of all the forest creatures.

Themes

Science fiction; conservation; nature

Violence

Hoppers has some violence. For example:

Young Mabel jumps on her teacher and bites her.
Mabel’s grandmother admits to punching a teacher in the face when she was young.
Mabel and Jerry argue fiercely.
Bridges, buildings and the dam explode.
Dr Sam’s colleague, Nisha, threatens Mabel with a laser.
The Dr Sam robot hits Mabel, and Nisha throws it up into the roof space.
The Mabel robot falls from the sky and lands in the forest.
The head of the council is a butterfly who attacks the Mabel robot, who then accidentally squashes the butterfly.
A large flock of birds attacks a stork.
The snakes try to eat George.
A car crashes into another vehicle.
Mabel has to steer a car after the driver takes his hands off the wheel. The car crashes down a hill and lands upside down.
Mabel and Jerry are strapped to chairs and tied with cables.
A large tree falls on the robot Jerry, who explodes, which causes a fire. The fire spreads, causing much mayhem. Mabel tries to put out the fire with her Grandma’s jacket, which starts to burn. George tries to rescue Mabel when a burning tree falls on George. He looks dead, but Mabel saves him.

Sexual references

Hoppers has some sexual references. For example, George is a beaver and king of the animals. He thinks Mabel is attracted to him and says he ‘gets that all the time, but he’s married to his job’.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

There’s no use of substances in Hoppers.

Nudity and sexual activity

There’s no nudity or sexual activity in Hoppers.

Product placement

There’s no product placement in Hoppers.

Coarse language

Hoppers has some coarse language and name-calling, including ‘Shut up’, ‘jerk’, ‘stupid’ and ‘loser’.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Hoppers is an animated science fiction action movie with some great messages about conservation. It is, however, quite intense in places, particularly the final scene. This means it’s best suited to families with children aged over 8 years. We recommend parental guidance for children aged 7-8 years.

These are the main messages from Hoppers:

It’s hard to be angry when you’re part of something big.
It’s important to look after the environment and the animals in it.
It’s important to get to know people and try to understand differences.

Values in Hoppers that you could reinforce with your children include personal strength, passion and persistence, collaboration and teamwork.

Hoppers could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues like the following:

There needs to be a balance between progress and conservation.
Mabel feels guilty about lying to George. She apologises and they make up, but you could talk about the importance of honesty in friendships.