HOPPERS - Audio Review

0:00So Pixar has made some amazing films based on simple concepts, you know, toys fight for kids' attention. Toys come to life, yeah. Toys come to life, a fish swims across the ocean looking for a star. They're very straightforward things, but done with a lot of charm, done with a lot of emotion, done a lot of heart, done with a lot of great artistry, execution. But for me, Pixar has really been on top of their game when they've been weird. Just what the hell? You know, things like up where a man ties balloons to his house and lands in South America hanging out with talking dogs. You know, crazy. How do you, how do you get from here? Yeah, it is, it is one of those, yeah, where we see, yeah, we start with a, with an old couple who can't have a baby to a man and South America with talking dogs. Yeah.

1:00How did I get here? Yeah. Right tattooy, a rat controls a man to live out his dreams of being a chef. These are things that would get you kicked out of the studio. Now Pixar, Pixar is bringing on. Yeah, go with it. Turn it red. A girl gets up first period. Wait a minute. That's a Pixar movie on it. But that alone. Wait a minute. Stop right there. But no, she gets up first period and turns to a giant panda creature. And now I bring on this stuff because now we have one of Pixar's absolute weirdest movies, man. This is definitely in that category of, how did we get here? Yeah. Several times. What's going on? So, Mabel is a young woman who wants to save the grove in the ecosystems that's in it. Because it's being threatened by the mayor of the town. He's got this big highway project that he wants to do. Of course, it's going through the ecosystem of these, of several creatures who have lived there for years.

2:08And when it seems like nobody out there cares because we live in a very jaded world. She's trying to get petitions and everything signed and everybody to slam a doughnuts poor girl's face. Well, now she gets desperate because she seems to be only one that cares. And her desperation leads her to now. Okay. You might want to sit down. This is where the weirdest begins. She gets so desperate that she hijacks a robot beaver by putting her consciousness in it in infiltrating that animal kingdom where she starts a war that threatens the city in all human life. And that's just beginning. And people are like, wait, did I miss something? You got to work on these descriptions because now I didn't quite make sense. Hey, man, listen, let me let the trailers speak for itself. Maybe there's some light on this too, because I know y'all think all right. Damn it.

3:08There's, there's, there's weird. And it is too weird. Yeah, you had a stroke in the middle of this. Now, we just crossed over into two weird. Well, people, let's take a look at this trailer for hoppers. And we'll be back to tell you if Pixar has gone too far this time, too far. And we'll be back with our reviews. Doc, I need your help. Damn it. Nave, I'm in the middle of class. A class that you are enrolled in. Stop, Mabel. Come with me. The traditional methods to understand animals just won't work. But we've done it, Mabel. We created a revolutionary technology that gives us unprecedented access to the animal world. We call it hoppers, huh? We put this into this. Yes, yes, this into this. Mabel, be careful. Mabel, the body deceives right behind us. Whoa. And they were in the same depth. No.

4:08I understand you. What you doing, Mabel? This is incredible. Hey, what's your name, beaver? Uh, Mabel. You want to live here? You better learn pond rules. What are pond rules? Uh, uh, I am clear in the rest of the day. Let's hear that from Mabel, everyone. Root. Root. Root. Root. Root number 1. Don't be a sp- Hey, boy, are you sure? This is weird. Just annoying. Keep going. Ranger. Looking good, Fran. Tom, LeQuan, Tamara, Prutans, Pete, Peter, Beaty. Oh, yeah. It's crowded. But we're still alive. Root number 2. When you gotta eat? Eat. How did he get a little crown? That's your question. question. The humans are still in there. Last inch of land from us. There he is. We got a fight back. She seems to have become a Joan of Arc type rebel leader. They do not use hopping technology to upset the animal world. She found the button.

5:10The animal council has been summoned. The shrill beaver is right. They have treachery ends here. Let's squish the humans. Squish. They squish us. Why should we? Squish. What are they? I really don't think we need to go all the way to squish. Squish. Squish. Oh, it's all men. I'm a pistol. Start out is a good thing. Yeah, he went too far. Yeah, went too far. I had to tell you. Yeah, people. Like I said, look, if what I was saying was too weird before, we haven't even told you had the craziness here. Somebody said, oh, this is just avatar with animals. No, my friend. Maybe. Maybe. Somebody did write something dumb like that. Yeah, maybe a little bit. Well, I see, you know, you put your consciousness in the body and going and trying to help out the ecosystem out there. Yes. No, you would not be wrong, my friend. But it is so much more than that and so much more insane. So, you know,

6:12this starts out. Now, check this out. This starts out as a nature conservative message movie. And it's good. You know, the movie actually starts out with a very young Mabel who loves animals so much. If there's a hilarious scene of her trying to free these animals in her first grade class, I guess older Mabel has bonded with her grandmother later on. And she also loves nature. And she teaches Mabel how to respect it. And not be such a rage monster. Yeah, yeah, because she was a terrorist at one point. Equal terrorist. Yeah. Yeah. And with this, we get classic emotional storytelling from Pixar and, you know, the traditional stuff that we used to, you know, Mabel has bonded with her grandmother. My grandmother, we get tenderness. We get a lot of strong visuals that show that emotion, less words, a lot of again,

7:12just a lot of storytelling through imagery. Get some sadness up in there. It's great. But it's also very familiar. You know, it almost risk being too familiar if it goes any further, because this is very early in the movie. And things they take a shift from a typical conservative message movie, or comps, or a conservation, yeah, a conservation message movie to a sci-fi film that turns into a killer animal harm movie resulting in an attempted political assassination. Now, Am I wrong? No, no, no, no. No, you're right. Wow, that's all those popular movies from the 70s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the three days of the condor. Yeah. Yeah, people tell it goes from, it goes from Avatar to Jaws to the Swarm. If you know that move from the 70s, killer bees to the inch cocks, the burgers, to any political assassination

8:18movie, you think of three days of the condor and still manages to be a family pixel film. If you can believe that, you know, I think the secret is this movie is that you have all these wild, crazy concepts, you know, the sci-fi, like the whole thing of like, oh, we could put a person's consciousness into an animal body. Yeah. Is that they just keep going with it. Like, there's no stopping to go like, well, wait, how does that work? It's like, you asked that question. You got left behind. We're, it's still going. Yeah. No, that is, that is very true, man. You better catch it. It's some of you never would be like, help. Still back here. Yeah. Listen, it makes for a very unpredictable story to say the least. And I don't want to say too much. Trailer already showed a lot. But man, this movie keeps flipping and flipping and flipping. Victims become heroes. Heroes become villains. And from there, shit, I don't know. It just goes insane.

9:22But rest assured that wherever this craziness goes, it all makes sense somehow. You know, the talent behind this script or the talents behind this script, they keep everything flowing, man. And I mean, it takes talent to hold this all together because, you know, from where it starts out as a, as a, as a kiddie talking animal movie, it does end up being hishcocks the birds. Oh, yeah. And it's, and it's crazy, man. Well, you know, everybody always paints nature as so noble. And this has a different perspective on it. It's like nature is nature. Yeah. Yeah. And don't piss it off. Mother nature is a bitch. Okay. You need to recognize it. You know, I want to get on the bad side. And a lot of this works because it, it could easily be disjointed. We talk about it all the time. Might have been mentioned this later that sometimes a movie tries to juggle too many ideas. And

10:23those things did, they, they just don't work together. But this all works together. And I think part of the, a large part of the reason why is because it's a, it's a silly film. It's silly out of necessity, man. It's it, because this goes to, as you saw with the trailer, man, this goes to some, some, some dark places here. And some of these things, if they didn't add any kind of humor, it would, people, people would be freaked out. Animals here, they acknowledge that they, they acknowledge their place in the food chain. And that they, they, they happily accept being eaten alive. You know, they, hey, you got to eat. Yeah. And some of them, they, they, they recognize that place in the food chain and respect that so much. They get mad if you try to interfere. And they're the ones being eaten. Everybody's cool with it. With all these animals living in one little pond, they needed some rules to make it work. You want to live here. You better learn them, dude. But I don't want to live here. I just wanted rule number one. Don't be a stranger. It's harder to be mad at someone if you know their name.

11:24Looking good, Ryan. Oh, thank you, sir. You too, friend. Tom, Lequan, Rosie, Tamara, Prutans, Matt. Only does a b-billionaire Lequan. You know, he's the black b-billionaire, Lequan. BP, Peter, PD, Sasha, Cat, Matt, Tombo. Hey, they're George. Hello to you, Steve. Steve was happy to go. Hey, no, no fuck's given. No, no, man, man, there's a death in here that is so sudden that it shocked everybody. Everybody adults and kids. They were like, the kid next to me said, damn. It's funny. You know, it's a screen full of kids. And it's pretty noisy. And everybody got quiet at that moment. They did. They did. They were like, don't believe what just happened. Yeah, just this, you can do that. Mama, my love, just see this. But the script is so well structured that it was quickly followed up by laugh. Uh-huh. Because they know this, they just know how to make these things flow together. It's interesting because there's plenty of laughs and it keeps it going. Like you

12:27say, it's a silly film. But the jokes don't undercut the tension. Like you always understand what's at stake here. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, man. I would say that with this, there might be, and it's not really a complaint from me, but I can understand if for some, there's this slight feeling of too much too fast because there's so much going on. Like a villain in this movie will quickly get replaced by a crazy villain who will get replaced by another crazy villain. It just keeps escalating. And it happens so quick that it's not the best character development. But what the script does have going for it. Again, going back to being silly and the humor's working so well is that things remain funny. All the jokes that wrap it, but they wrap it fire, but they work. And you know, things are moving so quickly that you don't need to get that deep with them. There's a deep, there's a bigger, deeper message than that this adheres to. And it sticks to that. And so everything else can kind of play really crazy

13:31here. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. It stays focused. It keeps his eye on the prize. It's interesting. You talking about it made me think, you know, you could remake this without jokes as just a straight horror movie. Yes. No, you could. I mean, the near the end of this, I was truly terrified of a mankind. Yeah. I mean, I've never been so intimidated by a pistol butterfly. I got butterflies. That's the that's the biggest villain in the movie right there. Man, one of them. Well, look at those eyes. Yeah. And don't let these pretty weird wings in this small size fool you. I'm running things around here. Yeah. I think the, I mean, this movie has so much going for it. But for me, the biggest asset was its unpredictability. Because we just, you know, like we just saw the movie The Goat. And yeah, The Goat is great to look at, but it's just so

14:35predictable that you almost kind of, you almost kind of stopped paying attention to it. You know, you really do. I mean, after about 10 minutes, you know what this movie's going. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You mean, I dare you to go in like it. Y'all have heard us talk. So you probably are prepared, but by somebody who hasn't seen the marketing for this and dare them to go in there, they can they know what's going to happen. I went in cold. I didn't really know anything. All I said, I, all I ever saw was the poster. Yeah. And the way it begins, yeah, it felt very typical Pixar. Good. You know, I mean, you know, you know, a good Pixar movie will hit you in the fields. And they, and they, they, they, they got, they, they get you early on in the movie. No, they, and it's legit. And, but it's their up moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's their up moment. And then does that like, all right, well, what's the familiar territory we're going to go to next? And familiar is out the window because yeah, and every time you think, okay, you got to beat on it, it switches and it's something else. And, and it's a, it's a roller coaster. You have a time

15:39to like get your bearings. You just got to go with it. Oh, yeah. No, man, listen, I ain't gonna lie. I went in with a attitude. Well, especially they're like, they're, you know, them doing something original. The last thing was Elio, which is kind of like, just kind of lame. And, and then elemental was just, okay. Yeah. No, I went in there with a attitude. I had my nose up in there and everything. I'm saying, yeah. Oh, Pixar, will you ever find that magic again? I can't get this. I can't not know where I'm going. Stop the car. Stop the car. Let me have this bitch. Yeah, man. I don't, I, at Pixar, this is where you have some of the best storytelling, when they can take all these crazy elements and make them work. This is why I love Pixar when they're at their weirdest. Yeah. Those guys are talented. Oh, they should teach

16:41you master class. Yeah, man. I listen, at the very last second, I saw you, you got me, yeah. But you were almost on there. And I saw right, man, like, it was like midway right here. I saw those eyes. Oh, man. Well, hey, man, while this movie is unpredictable, I am apparently very predictable. So you know, I'm going to do this ad right here. Hey, but listen, man, this and that, like, like, one of the ads I really like to do because it's for master class. That's how sponsor right now. And always give ads out there. And I don't endorse anything that I don't think I should, but master class is something that I really love because master class, it takes all these people who are masters in that area, people who are professionals. And I'm talking about, and I'm not talking about people that you haven't heard of. We're talking about celebrities, big names and entertainment, big names in art, big names of sports, big names in science,

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19:47feel like it has enriched their life for the better. They feel like they're better people for it. So why are you denying yourself? I'm trying to help you. Let me get that master class. I want to think masterclass was sponsoring this portion of the show. I want to thank all of you out there for your support. Getting back into it. Man, there's so much I enjoyed in this movie. I really did. And I did not think in the first 15 minutes I was going to, I thought I was going to be very bland about this. Very bland. But I enjoyed everything here, man. I enjoyed the characters. Even when I think I, when I, even when I thought I wouldn't enjoy them. Yeah, because Mabel starts out very annoying. And I was like, I don't know if I want to hang with this girl for the next 90 minutes. That's just the Mabel got my down there from the from the beginning. That was the, the movie mean a Mabel. And she's 70 years old. And I'm like, what's that? And if somebody needs somebody to sit to the girl down, I might as well do them, but she'd run around the school biting people in a little terrorist. But yeah, the movie, and she's played by

20:51Piper Curtis, I think. And yeah, man, she's annoying. But the movie admits she's annoying. The movie tells you, hey, look, with Pixar, I said, we don't even like Mabel. But I get it. She's passionate about what she's doing. And she's, but she's passionate at a time when she seems to be surrounded by people with nothing but apathy, you know, people who don't care. And I get that, man. Also, man, I think she's funny. Then I like the relationship she has with the mayor, Mayor Jerry. Yeah. Mayor Jerry is an interesting character because, because sometimes you think, I think I'm supposed to hate this guy. But he'll do something. He'll like, I don't know if I do hate him. And I kind of see where he's coming from. He's a politician. And even though we're told that Jerry's probably not doing the right thing, everybody loves Jerry. And you can see why he's like, man, I kind of like John Ham does the voice. And the reason why he's funny, but him and Mabel, man, they bonded over the dislike of each other. Like Mabel knows where he

21:53lives. And Jerry doesn't say I'm going to call a police. He's like, man, my mother's gonna sleep out. So she's been there before. And that's the relationship. I love the way this there, there's how the relationship goes, which is based on their distrust and dislike of each other. But Jerry's, Jerry's a deeper character than you think. And a lot of movies, he would be that he would be the ecological villain here. Right. Right. You know, the environmental villain here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he has, you know, an actual thing he's working towards. But as much as he doesn't like Mabel, he respects her. Yeah. And that's something you don't usually get and, you know, movies like this or movies at all. But, but the, but they don't play it up. You have to read into it. Yes. Because he clearly does not like her. But he, you could tell he respects it because man, he deals with more than he's chill. Like he can have a little last just

22:53taken out of there by the police at any moment. And he tells people to hold on. He just, in poor, poor Jerry, he's just like, Mabel, what you want today? What is it? Yeah. What is it? I really like those characters, man. And, and, and there's just some funny things with Mabel, man. Mabel, everywhere, what I like about Mabel is everywhere she goes, man, it's not just Jerry. She's a nuisance to everybody. Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. And everybody knows Mabel is that person where she walks in the room and like, oh, no, not you again. We just need to be careful. This technology must never fall into the wrong hands. What is that? Mabel, don't you say what? You're, you're experimenting on animals? All hands on her. Nisha. No, get out. I was like, get it. Yes, yes. You got to love the framing on that. It can't fall into the wrong hands. And they spit around and knew who stayed in there, but the wrong hands. Both of them. Yeah. Yeah. She was right behind the pillar.

23:56Mabel's a harm move for them. Yeah. There's, there's, they, they, they, they did in the trailer where, you know, there's some, there's some funny jokes with her, man. They, they have the one where you saw her. She goes, she, she interrupts her professor in the class that she's in. I thought that, I thought that that was very funny, man. It's like, even the students know her. They're like, hello, Mabel. Yes. Thank you, Mabel for letting us get out of her room. That's, that was a problem. Those are probably the people, the only people that like Mabel, man. You know, I, I, I think that there's a lot of good voices in here. I like, I like a, Bobby Mane, Moynihan. Moynihan, yeah. As King George, the King Beaver. I thought that that character was handled well because he's, he's, he's definitely one of the funniest characters in the movie. We want to silly characters in the movie, but they don't go overboard with them. They don't, but, you know, the, he's got that whole thing where he's explaining like the pot under rules. And it's like, it's really well thought out.

25:00Yeah, no, he seems responsible. He's not a dumb character. He might be funny, but he's not stupid or too goofy. He's saying, man, you, you first meet him. You see him, you know, a little cartoon beaver. And you're like, okay, what's dumb thing is he doing the day? And it's like, no, you're actually a pretty good leader. Yeah. He probably a better man than Jared. Oh, absolutely. Like, he really, like besides knowing everybody, just the whole system he has worked out and like, hey, look, it's, it's not perfect because our situation is not perfect, but it's as good as it could get. Yeah. And he actually saved all those animals from their previous situation. Yeah, man, I, I love the voices. I love the, the, the, I love the characters. He liked that little thing they do with the eyes. I was going to say that, man, the character design here. I love how the film plays with that because when the animals behave like animals, and it's from the human perspective, they got the little BDIs. Yeah, yeah, because you can't be understood. But when you're in the robot, or you can't understand the animals, then their eyes, they, you know, you see the whites of their eyes. Well, yeah, that and they also become, they take on human traits. They have human gestions.

26:06They, you know, they have human mannerisms. And, and they also, they, they, they talk like humans. And I think, I think it's fun how they did that contrast because, you know, with things become, again, it fits the tone of the movie because when they actually switch off into Mabel or us seeing the animal world, it, it, it becomes very cartoony. Nice feathers. Are we vibing this branch too? I understand you're together. Ladies, what you doing? I love the square of the bike. Like, what the hell is going on here? It takes somebody like Mabel to be in that, that, that, that beaver. And be excited about it, be happy about it. Any other thing, anyone else would be like, what's happening? Oh, God, what's happening? Yeah, you know, look at a time when,

27:09I mean, I'm sure this has been said about everybody's time period. But really, right now, it feels like when a time when cynicism is very high, pessimism is cool. And a lack of empathy is seen as, as a virtue. I don't get that myself, but some people are embracing that. I don't know why. So for that kind of thing, this movie could easily, it could easily be ridiculed by people, to go people's head, people could brush us off. But I think for the message that this movie has, which is let's not take nature for granted, it could easily be shrugged up by people today. I think that the message of positivity here and the message of hope, I think they get it right. You know, it's not just done with humor, it's done with also insanity. And it's very insane times that we're living right now. And this movie seems to fit right in. So yeah, I, man, I really like this. And I liked it way more than I thought I would from the beginning. And I like that aspect of it too, because as we've been talking about,

28:13it just didn't, I was not prepared for where we're going to go. Right, right. So I give this a high full price. And just like you talk about up, I had that same connection. Oh, man, this is going to be something simple. And wow, where have we gone some other place. In fact, you look at this technology. And I was like, this is kind of similar to that technology they had an up. I wonder if these, you know, at some point you find out these movies are connected. The same word. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, they say all every pixel move is connected out there, but there you go. But yeah, like you, it was a, I mean, I'd say it's a surprise. I just went in, not knowing anything. I barely knew it was a Pixar movie. And you know, I knew they had the capacity to do something. It's just, I'm just excited because it is an original property. It is not a, do a sequel to this. I mean, they may end up doing a sequel at some point because, you know, that's what people love to do. But what you say about it being full of hope and not cynicism, that is a big plus for this. It's a breath of fresh air. But also just the fact that it can move

29:17and do so many different things, so many crazy things. But you just, you just, you can't turn your back on it because you don't know where it's going to go next. And in the best way possible. And yeah, it's, it's a, it was a full price movie to me. Yeah. No, I really like that. I think there's one of the best things they've done a long time. Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah, I think I hear a lot of people say that. So yeah, yeah, I actually, I love this movie, man. I walked out here feeling good because I laughed so hard. And I was expecting this to be pretty sappy. Maybe I'm jaded. Oh, man, somebody says, see, there's a list. I don't want to hear this bullshit. And again, nothing to chase people off. But this is one of the dumbest cases arguments that I've heard for having a lack of empathy. Well, Corey, empathy can lead to liberalism and maybe even leftism. No, you know, well, okay. So explain why that's bad. No, empathy leads to understanding. All right. Take you, take you left the right out of it. If you don't have empathy, if anything,

30:18then you don't have a soul. I'm sorry. I mean, you don't, if you can't feel what other people are feeling, if you can't make an attempt to understand other people, if you don't want to do anything, but just connect with something that's familiar to you and then villainize something else, then as human beings, I don't give a shit what political affiliation you have. As human beings, we are lost. All right. And we don't have any empathy for others. If you think it's because, if man is going to make me be like them, or is going to make you weak. Listen, I got empathy and I'd date a step to me. I ain't saying I'm the baddest. I ain't saying I can fight everybody. I'm saying, but I'm not going to take your shit. Well, just a lack of empathy. It's a lack of development and it's a lot of fear. It's a, it's the, you know, this fear of being, quote, unquote, weak or being like somebody else or discovering that once you find out, here's somebody else's point of view that, hey, maybe everything you believe or you thought was, is wrong. And people just, they, they're scared to give that up. He's even a better argument. Maybe I'm stupid and

31:22understanding. You don't understand the, the sarcasm behind it. Is that what it is? It might be. Okay. No, I, no, no, listen, I probably, I'll, I'll take that. I'm going to blow, I'm not going to blow like that. No, I don't, I don't understand. Wait, they put the, the weird ass on it. No, they didn't. Well, that's your fault. No, no, it's been listening. Well, those things were, they put quotes on the next thing. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I was thinking, yeah, I'll tell you, apparently I got no sense of humor. It's different when it's written down. Hey, but that's on your new bingo car. We crashing out. Was it, did that count? I don't think that it counted as a crash out. No, when I turn on custom body out and custom body. I guess that, no, I did. I did come to me. He stepped to me. He stepped to me. No, no, you got me. I'm sorry. Ain't nobody say it kind of counted. No, he counted. They didn't count it. Put that on your car.

32:23Okay. Yeah. No, somebody said, send my crash out. No, that would blow. I drove that car to a wall. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, athletic brewing fits right in. With a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles, you can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stuck the fridge for tip off with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or online at AthleticBruing.com. Near beer, fit for all times.