Hitpig

November 8 – 12

7:00 pm nightly
1:30 Sunday Matinée
PG — 1hr 25min
2024 ‧ Animation / Adventure

If you love animals, you’ll want to go the whole hog on Hitpig, a zesty, fun, laugh-out-loud story of friendship that’s an original, organic alternative to endless sequels and reboots. Hitpig (Jason Sudeikis) is a clever bounty hunting pig who catches escaped animals and returns them to their owners. His next job is his biggest yet: return a dancing elephant named Pickles (Lilly Singh) to a maniacal Vegas showman (Rainn Wilson), for a million bucks. The mission quickly escalates into a wild adventure around the world. When danger looms, it is up to Hitpig to save the day, but he can’t do it alone. He must realize that some things are more important than a paycheck and finds the greatest bounty of all, friends.

Hitpig is introduced with a blast of Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild. In fact, the multi-generational music choices are well worth swaying to, with the playlist including Iggy Pop’s Wild One, Katrina and the Waves’ Walking on Sunshine, Pat Benatar’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself setting the right jaunty mood. With his pebble glasses, Hitpig has got a touch of Jean Reno as Leon, and he’s a pig on a mission to reunite lost animals and pets with their owners; ‘Lost your dog? you phoned the right hog!’ is Hitpig’s motto.

Berkeley Breathed, whose comic strips include Opus, Outland and Bloom County is the brains behind Hitpig, and the characters in this new movie have a stylized similarity to the characters in the comic strips. They also display some of the humor for which Breathed is known. It’s a zesty, cheerful, slightly ruder than usual animation that should please all ages, a cut above the usual animated fare, and a nice development of the Viva animation label. If you love animals, you’ll want to go the whole hog on Hitpig, a zesty, laugh-out-loud fun story. There are subtle messages about honestly, friendship, and the importance of kindness, in particular when it comes to our animal friends.