I'm going to start today's movie post about a movie I'm not seeing and that's Supergirl. The follow up to last year's Superman has failed to pique my interest enough to pry money from my wallet and move my posterior to a cinema seat to go see it.
I'll be honest, I'm not sure I can articulate my disinterest in Supergirl beyond a rather vague "something seems... off". The legitimate reviews I have seen have voiced concerns with a lackluster script and a less than engaging antagonist.
A lot of behind the scenes drama did the movie no favors. Click here for the Hoillywood Reporter's autopsy of what went wrong with Supergirl.
Gushing praise of Milly Alcock as Supergirl and Jason Mamoa as Lobo have not been enough to fend off the very discernable stench of failure around this film.
Even with Krypto in it.
The box office take for Supergirl has been underwhelming between bad reviews and strong competition from Toy Story 5.
Despite glowing reviews and record setting box office receipts, I have not been moved to spend money and time seeing this latest outing from Pixar in a movie theater.
The trauma of Toy Story 4 is still too raw.
Speaking of Pixar movies....
It's Movie Time!
Today's post is about a Pixar film that came out earlier this year which Andrea and I watched on Disney+ last weekend.
Hoppers is about a robot beaver....
And can I stop right there?
I mean, I had a lot to do at work this week and I'm kind of tired.
And really, what more do you need to know.
Robot. Beaver.
Fine! We'll go a little deeper.
Say hello to 6-year old Mabel Tanaka. Mabel is a rebel against the establishment, seeking to free her school's various pets from their respective cages, terrariums and what have you to release them back to the wild.
Mabel gets busted by school authorities and suspended for her acts of revolution on behalf of the critters in the school.
Mabel bonds with her grandmother who shares with her granddaughter a nearby glade and teaches her to appreciate the bounty of life that calls this place home.
13 years later after her parents have moved away and her grandmother has died, college student Mabel strives to protect the glade.
But it's in danger. Jerry Generazzo, the mayor of Beaverton, is really super big on building an expressway that will run right through the glade.
One of the many obstacles facing Mabel is the absence of the critters who normally callthe glade their home. All the animals are missing.... except for one lone beaver.
Who is not really a beaver.
Mabel tracks the animal back to the university where she discovers Dr. Sam, a scientist/professor/sort of a mentor person, is running an experimental program called "Hoppers" that can transfer a human mind into a robot animal.
Mabel usurps the program, putting her mind in the beaver and skedaddles back to the glade to solve the mystery of the missing critters.
Mabel meets a beaver, King George, who serves as monarch over the animals who have left the glade and living in an overcrowed dam.
I'm going to stop here and say that I have enjoyed certain elements of Hoppers so far but as a holistic movie experience, I can only say....."something seems... off".
As I write what I've written so far, it seems to me that the plot structure needed to get Mabel into a robot beaver and then get her into position with George and his makeshift kingdom seems a bit rickety, an overly complicated Rube Goldberg device.
Shouldn't the character of Dr. Sam have been introduced earlier, establishing her relationship with Mabel? Mabel's discovery of the "Hoppers" program leads to a big info dump to bring us up to speed who this scientist is, how she knows Mabel, etc.
It's a lot of work to get Mabel in a robot beaver and interacting with the animal kingdom.
Mabel's efforts to help George save the glade and make it safe for the animals to move back there spins out of control when the Animal Council decides to declare war on Mayor Jerry.
They're gonna squish him.
To that end, a flock of seagulls will drop a shark named Diane on top of him.
Which gives us one of my favorite lines of dialogue from the movie.
Vanessa Bayer provides quite the friendly voice for Diane the Shark.
Hey, Doctor Who reference? The antibody drones inside the Teselecta have a similar advisory:
ANTIBODY: You will experience a tingling sensation and then death.
"Let's Kill Hitler",written by Steven Moffatt, 8/27/2011
The "That's Not Patton Oswald" Dept.
Earlier, I was watching the season 4 finale of Invincible and there was a character named Ed who is Zoe's father.
I thought, "Hey, that sounds like Patton Oswalt!"
I looked it up.
Nope! It's Bobby Moynihan.
While watching Hoppers, Andrea said, "Hey, George sounds like Patton Oswalt!"
I looked it up.
Nope! It's Bobby Moynihan.
So I imagine a producer says, "Get me Patton Oswalt!"
And an associate replies, "We can't afford Patton Oswalt!"
Then the producer demands, "Then get me Patton Oswalt's low cost substitute."
And so an agent somewhere makes a call: "Hey, Bobby! Guess what?"
And... scene!
Back to the movie!
Which takes a dark turn when the Insect King usurps control over the Animal Council, declaring all out war on humans using a robot Mayor Jerry suit to like kill everybody.
We've got some kind of Animal Farm/Lord of the Flies/Mad Max vibe going on in our Pixar movie.
Can anyone stop the Insect King's mad tyrannical quest for power and carnage?
Incredibly easy, barely an inconvenience.
The Frog King flicks out his tongue and eats 'em.
So there!
It all ends well as one expects it should. Mayor Jerry has learned a lesson to be nice to nature or it WILL kill him.
He restores the glade to it's original state and the animals all come back to their home.
And human Mabel and beaver George remain friends.
What? You think they should be more than friends? What is wrong with you? Will someone please think of the children?!?
SIDE NOTE: What about the lizard?
In the run up to the release of the film, TV was littered with promotional stuff that highlighted Tom Lizard.
So many commercials with Tom going "I have something I would like to say!"
DId I miss something? Did I take a nap through whatever part of Hoppers Tom Lizard actually made a signifiicant contriution?
I guess it's like with HeiHei the rooster in all the promos for the first Moana film and when the movie came out, he was just... there.
There's a live action version coming out this summer.
Why?
This seems to me so unnecesary beyond a blatant cash grab.
Back to Hoppers!
All in all, I enjoyed the movie more than I did not. There are some really sweet moments such as Mabel's relationship with her grandmother.... but it felt kind of manipulative, like Pixar was trying really hard for a sweet but sad Up style moment.
And there were some genuine laughs with a some aburdly over the top comedic sequences that call to mind The Emperor's New Groove.
But I think Hoppers lacked a cohesive narrative structure that undermined my ability to fully care about Mabel's life and her story arc.
No comments:
Post a Comment