Director:
Don Hall, Chris Williams
Cast:
Scott Adsit
Ryan Potter
Daniel Henney
Maya Rudolph
Rated: PG
Hiro isn’t an average teenager. At 13, the main character of “Big Hero 6” has already graduated from High School and has mastered robotics. Unfortunately, he doesn’t exactly use his gifts for the best purposes as he ends up in back alleys at night partaking in robot fights. While he is good at the fights, his brother Tadashi, sees a better route.
A robotics expert himself, Tadashi encourages his younger brother to attend the same university that he goes to. One night Tadashi takes Hiro to his lab at the college where Hiro meets Tadashi four friends. Hiro seems to be inspired after the visit and plans to attend the university, however, an accident that takes Tadashi’s life changes that decision.
Not long afterwards, Hiro discovers a robot Tadashi built named Baymax. The discovery of Baymax soon leads to developments that will change the course of Hiro’s life.
The Disney resurgence that audiences have witnessed over the past five years or so has been an absolute gem and “Big Hero 6” is no exception. No doubt about it, Disney has done it again.
From the opening seconds of the film, I was already hooked by both the animation style and the story. As an anime and comic book fan, the story was very reminiscent of others that I’d seen over the years, and it was welcome to see it in a Disney animated film. In simple terms, the way “Wreck-It Ralph” captured gaming, “Big Hero 6” captured anime/comic books.
The story is impressive. There are turns that will keep one guessing and very strong emotional moments that make for a solid picture. Now that Marvel is owned by Disney, and seeing that “Big Hero 6” originated as a comic book, it’s no surprise that this movie also took some inspiration from recent super hero movies such as “The Avengers,” and it ends up really working.
Like other Marvel movies, this flick was able to raise the stakes to a high degree and at the same time still keep things feeling fun, humorous and adventurous.
With all that said, though, the best part of the movie and essentially the film’s core is the relationship with Hiro and Baymax.
The relationship is reminiscent of John Connor and the T-800 from “Terminator 2” in that they both learn a great deal from each other and it betters each of them.
It is also great because it allows the audience to have a pair of great protagonists to watch and see develop from beginning to end.
The supporting characters were also fun, but could have used just a little more development. At some points they came across more like simple archetypes, however, this is still a minor complaint. As the main characters, and the main relationship, was between Baymax and Hiro, I’m able to let the side characters slide a bit more, and they are still a lot of fun in the flick.
The animation is just awesome to look at. The movie is set in the fictional city of San Fransokyo and the design perfectly captures the best things about science fiction through bright and vibrant colors.
The action was also good, for what you can get with a Disney film, at least. Scenes where the characters are learning different abilities and the confrontations with the villains were very exciting.
“Big Hero 6” has continued the new Disney tradition. At its core, it is an emotional story that is built up with exciting action, strong lead characters, great animation and very funny dialogue. Even though it has a few flaws, it earns a 5 out of 5 rating.
Matthew Liedke on Film 