Hoppers

I really liked this! While it is a weird trend that so many kids movies with non-white protagonists have them spend half the movie as an animal (princess and the frog, for example), this was a really delightful movie. Also excellently cast, particularly Meryle Streep, Ego Nwodim, and Vanessa Bayer, who I feel like is amazing at giving odd small parts so much life and character. Definitely engaged the part of me that loves animals while also having lots of fun sci-fi/fantasy elements, but the real clincher for me is just how much horror they managed to fit into the movie. Embracing the scariness of being a regular human and being abducted by some beavers (and a lizard) while the rest of nature tries to kill you really worked for this movie. And it has some really impactful emotional depth, especially around the feeling of living in a society that you see constantly carrying out violence against innocents which you feel powerless to stop, and realizing that you carry more of that mindset in you than you think and the need to be conscious of that. That being said, the resolution doesn't quite follow through on those ideas, compromising a bit to avoid saying anything too radical. Plus all the animals were really cute and very funny.