There was a point in Hoppers where I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. Everything that was happening was just nonsense, and the only thing I felt while watching was exhaustion. The more the movie went on — because boy, does this movie feel long — the more that exhaustion grew to anger, and by the film’s climax, I was genuinely pissed in a way that I haven’t felt at an animated movie since 2015’s Minions.

But at least Minions had the good sense not to be about anything thematically. It knew it had no obligation to have any real emotional weight. In addition to being ridiculous, Hoppers also wears a smug crown on its head, even though its messages about nature and the goodness in everyone are as tacked-on as they come.

Hoppers’s screenplay has no rules or narrative structure. It does whatever it wants and expects us to tag along for the ride, no questions asked. That wouldn’t be such a problem if the film were consistently funny, but Hoppers seems to think absurdity is all you need to create a working punchline.

There are no clever jokes here. It’s just wackiness for the sake of wackiness. The film is seemingly content with asking you to laugh at how random it all is and nothing else. The comedic scenes that don’t rely on absurdity are low-effort, like one where the joke is just that the animals are making loud, annoying noises, and one that is a direct reference to an internet meme.

Without good jokes, this movie falls completely flat. It can’t work any other way. When your film is so outlandish and removed from reality, there ends up being no stakes. How can there be when ridiculous things happen left and right, and you just have to accept it? Deaths mean nothing in this world, and because there are no stakes, there are no reasons to care.

Unless you’ve got clever jokes to back it up, that is. Not only is this movie unable to give us that, but it’s also seemingly deluded that it’s about something deep and important, when really, this is a movie about nothing.

Don’t let the beginning fool you. This film isn’t about how beautiful nature can be. If it were, it would’ve actually shown us a beautiful secret world that animals live in, and not one filled with whatever “Wouldn’t this be crazy?” thought entered the writers’ heads.

Don’t let the dialogue fool you, either. This film isn’t about how there’s goodness in every creature. If it were, it wouldn’t have made these numerous characters do some morally reprehensible stuff, defended by the idea that it’s a wacky animated movie, and also, being vicious is just how the natural world works. It also would’ve bothered to redeem certain villains, and the villains that do get redemption happen so quickly, it’s nowhere close to convincing.

Most importantly, don’t let this movie fool you into believing that it’s about how we’re all one with nature and that we all share a home. Hoppers doesn’t make the world of animals look appealing at all. This world looks rowdy and absurd and vicious, and if anything, it makes me want to stay as far away from this forest as possible.

Moreso, this world doesn’t feel real in the slightest. I get that being crazily removed from reality was what they were going for, but the film’s tone is actively at war with its own message. How does this movie plan on making me care about the Earth when it clearly does not take place on a recognizable version of it? How can such a preposterous portrayal of nature be beautiful and serene at the same time?

But I’ve liked preachy, unconvincing “Save the Rainforest” films before. What really bogs down this film is how much it fails in making us care about any of its elements. I don’t care about the protagonist, Mabel. She’s only eccentric because it’s convenient to the plot, and her emotional journey is barren. It’s never explained why she cares about the environment so much other than it was her connection with her grandma. (The dead grandmother subplot was emotionally manipulative, too, right down to the excessive use of flashbacks.)

I don’t care about any of the other characters. Really, only the beaver is given any real character, and the rest are just there to enable the plot. I don’t care about this glade Mabel is so desperate to save, because unlike Avatar that showed me how beautiful Pandora can be, and unlike The Wild Robot that made me deeply care about several of its island’s inhabitants, this film does nothing to make me care about this glade other than some arrogant chin-lifting about how I should care about the planet more.

This film expects us to care about its animals simply because they are animals, and that is always the wrong route for any animal movie to take. In the same way we won’t care about human characters simply because they are humans, why should animals be any different?

Hoppers is the equivalent of someone describing their “craziest dream last night” and expecting us to be as invested as they are. Even worse, it’s someone trying to add meaning and interpretation to what is very much just a nonsensical dream.

If this movie wasn’t so hell-bent on being so off-the-rails just to be off-the-rails, its emotional beats might’ve worked a lot better. If it didn’t bother so much with those beats, it might’ve been a lot funnier, maybe even on the same level as The Emperor’s New Groove. All I’m left with is a confused mess of what feels like a first or second draft. Pick a lane, movie.