Superheros are crazy popular right now, so it’s no surprise that Disney wanted to get in on the craze – aside from buying Marvel, of course, they now have their newest animated movie – Big Hero 6, a superhero movie aimed toward kids, but one that can be enjoyed by adults too. There were plenty of fun, redeeming qualities about the film, but at the end of the day I will say that it was more or less a cookie cutter super hero movie, with a plot that was perhaps a bit too predictable for us older Disney fans.
The basic story, without spoiling too much, is this: a 14 year old genius boy named Hiro teams up with some college friends as well as a robot named Baymax in order to stop an unidentified, masked villain. To say any more than that would be to give up too much of the plot, I’m afraid.
The biggest highlight of the movie, without a doubt, was Baymax. He is the thing that takes Big Hero 6 from what could have otherwise been just an okay movie to a very good movie. Baymax is originally designed to be a robot health care provider – he can scan and diagnose patients, and then offer assistance to cure them. Just looking at him you can tell he’s comfy and huggable. Of course, Hiro feels the need to upgrade him with some karate action once they start their superhero quest. Baymax is an absolutely sweet character (he’s designed to be that way, after all), but he’s also hilarious, in the way that robots attempting to interact with humans often are. If you’re a Star Trek fan, I will say that a lot of the humor concerning Baymax was very Data-esque, in Next Generation. Let’s just say that Baymax doing a “fist bump” is pretty much the funniest thing ever. I walked out of the theater wanting a Baymax of my own.
The rest of the characters are fun, if a bit one-note. Something that a lot of people will probably enjoy is that the group of friends are pretty much just super big nerds – so you’ve got a fun story about nerds learning how to be superheroes. I suspect a lot of people will appreciate this sort of plot line. And it’s pretty funny too, and nice that they don’t immediately become perfect super heroes (though like any other movie, it does happen pretty darn fast after a few mistakes!)
The animation is also very good – no complaints there. Very pretty, and while we didn’t see it in 3D I bet it’s a movie that would actually do really well there and might be worth seeing in 3D.
The plot itself is fine. It throws in some strong emotions that are dealt with throughout the entire film, and I thought they handled that part of it quite well. The unfortunate part was just that it followed your typical super hero formula. You could pretty much see the way the movie was headed the whole time. The entire movie I was waiting for a Wreck-It Ralph type plot twist or surprise, but ultimately was disappointed. The big “villain reveal” is something you most likely saw coming, and on top of that the motive for the villain is kind of thrown in at the last minute. There were also some flaws in the logic of the plot, which I won’t say here due to spoilers.
On another high note, I loved the short, “Feast,” at the beginning of the movie. It’s about a dog and his owner, and the changes that they go through as the owner’s life changes – but the story is basically told through the use of food, and what the dog is fed/eats. Very sweet and funny, and a great short overall.
At the end of the day, Big Hero 6 was a good movie. But to me, it wasn’t a stand-out, unique, incredible movie. Baymax is a fantastic character, and it’s worth going to see just for him. However, the past few movies Disney has put out are things that I enjoy a bit more – and I will admit, I’m a sucker for an animated movie musical, so any movie like this that doesn’t have singing probably won’t end up being my favorite. But I think lots of people will love this one, and it’s really nice that it’s appealing to both boys and girls!
Have you seen Big Hero 6? What did you think?
I just skimmed this as I haven’t seen it yet and don’t wanna be spoiled.
Thanks for your review. I really loved it especially the relationship between the brothers and how it dealt with grief and loneliness. I thought the motivations of the villain were interesting and loved the design of Sanfransokyo. I loved Baymax and thought it was nice to see a diverse group of races and men and women. So yeah I really enjoyed it.
Yes, those were all really great things that the movie did. I kind of wish we got to see more of that diverse group because they did seem so interesting!
I think we will see more in either sequels or a series of some sort. This is like the origin story