Big Hero 6 is Disney’s new animated movie based on an apparently obscure Marvel comic book of the same name… and it’s really quite good. It’s not amazing but I was never bored by it, I laughed quite a bit, and I found it very inventive, with a screen so packed full of details I know I was missing out on details (though it’s very possible those details were inside references for comic book fans).
Set in the city of San Fransokyo (San Fran with a heavy Japanese architectural influence), it’s about a 14 year old boy genius (Hiro) who has lost the big brother but finds his experimental robotic health care provider… the inflatable robot Baymax who is made of cuteness (but with a core of mechanical toughness). Together with his science and robotics loving friends, they form a superhero group to take down a threat to the city. Nothing terribly original story-wise – it’s an origin story as one of the characters notes.
The heroes are made up of Honey Lemmon (a blonde girly girl with spheres she invented that can alter the chemical makeup of objects), Gogo Tomago (a tough girl with awesome electronic-mechanical roller blades on her super suit), Wasabi (a guy with some kind of vibration blades on his suit), and Fred (the school mascot who wants to be a fire-breathing dragon). Not to be a crusader or to say every movie needs diversity, but this movie does a great job of offering it (without making a big deal out of it – it just is – and Hiro – our hero, so to speak – is of Japanese ancestry which rarely ever happens in a big theatrical release (I’m looking at your 47 Ronin and Last Samurai).
My only real criticism of the movie is that I didn’t find it as emotionally stirring as I hoped. The movie was trying real hard and you might get more out of it but I felt Disney did a better job with Toy Story 3 (of course), Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, and even Tangled. But they tried and the movie is pretty hilarious and exciting and offers character growth for our protagonist.
And, honestly, just as the diversity is a net positive, the movie (f’ing) loves science. I don’t think I’ve seen any mainstream animated film that is so in love with science and robotics. It clearly wants to encourage kids to love it too and that’s just fantastic.
It’s also very weird that this opened the same weekend as Interstellar, a movie that also (f’ing) loves science. Not sure if that means anything… I just find it interesting.
I recommend this flick to everyone but especially kids, comedy fans, and fans of superheroes (and The Incredibles).
Score: 86