Surely you haven’t escaped the viral meme “LIZARD” with a peppy little green reptile repeatedly hitting a button on a phone speaking the name of its own emoji… and I’m happy to report that Tom Lizard is present and peppy as ever in Pixar’s latest animated film HOPPERS.

HOPPERS is about an environmentalist college student named Mabel (Piper Curda) that’s doing her best to save a small ecosystem in her grandmom’s backyard from the ever-marching hand of progress. In her town of Beaverton, Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) is steamrolling a plan for a town beltway which will take it right through Mabel’s special place. In trying to stop eminent domain from taking away her peace, Mabel stumbles upon a secret project her college professor Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy) has been working on that can transport one’s mind into that of a robot animal… but it’s NOTHING LIKE AVATAR as one of film’s best lines points out.

In her adventure, Mabel befriends a beaver by the name of King George (Bobby Moynihan) and even learns that there are different animal leaders. George is leader of the mammalians, there’s the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep) and her offspring (Dave Franco), Bird King (Isiah Witlock, Jr), Fish Queen (Ego Nwodim), and the Reptile Queens (Nichole Sakura).

The voice cast is stacked with other characters voiced by Eduardo Franco, Sam Richardson, Melissa Villaseñor, and Vanessa Bayer.

The film never takes itself too seriously but does carry a serious message about conservation and the importance of presvering animal habitats. That part was unexpected and isn’t too heavy-handed. Hilarious situations find Mabel throughout her adventure as befriending animals when you are a robot doesn’t go as smoothly as one might imagine. Obviously, this is a slight riff on the plot of Avatar, but this is far cuddlier of a story.

Some of the films funniest moments are in the quips and asides that are there for the adults in the crowd. There are some jokes one might think skew a bit older, but if you remember being a kid… then you know these joks will go right past the kiddos. Disney and Pixar are more than aware they need to entertain everyone here.

HOPPERS is easily one of the funniest movies of the year and one of Pixar’s best. The animation is pure perfection, as Pixar always seems to raise its own standard with each release. There’s one catastrophic scene that quite literally felt like an old-school Hollywood miniture filmed in slow motion and played back as such. Disaster movies have long relied on miniatures to showcase mass destruction, and the animators here took the time to model that in CGI and even programmed the water to behave as such… it’s truly a nerdy marvel that was not lost on this critic.

Great script, loveable characters (even a shark!), and immersive animation make HOPPERS a winner for young and old alike.