Big Hero 6 (2014) - Film Review

Starring: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Daniel Henney & James Cromwell

Screenplay: Jordan Roberts, Dan Gerson & Robert L. Baird

Directed By: Don Hall & Chris Williams

Certificate: PG

 

After the immense success of 2013's Frozen, all eyes have been on Disney to produce another animated classic and to help prove that the animation genre is in its next golden age. Their next film is Big Hero 6, a film that finds its footing with the relationship between two brothers as opposed to two sisters as it was in Frozen. But make no mistake, Big Hero 6 is far from being the boys' version of Frozen, with this film instead dealing with heavy topics such as losing a loved one, as well as promoting science and logical thinking as opposed to fantasy and magic.

 

In the city of San Fransokyo, fourteen year-old Hiro Hamada is something of a boy genius for robotics, but is wasting his talents on illegal bot-fighting in the city's backstreets. His brother, Tadashi, does his best to set him on the right track and introduces him to the city's Institute of Technology. After presenting the institute with his micro-bots, swarms of tiny robots under mind-control, he is offered a place at the school. However, Hiro's dream is cut short when a fire starts at the institute, burning the building down and taking the life of his brother. Weeks later, a depressed Hiro accidentally reactivates Tadashi's last creation – an inflatable healthcare robot called Baymax. At the same time, he discovers that someone is re-creating his micro-bots for their own ends...

 

Big Hero 6 finds its core with the surprisingly deep relationship, not between Hiro and his brother, but between Hiro and Baymax. The relationship here between a fourteen year-old and an inflatable robot is a lot more profound than it may sound, and despite his young age, Hiro goes through a lot over the course of the film. At an already turbulent time in his life, Hiro has to add on to that the loss of his brother and the immense grief and anguish that brings. All this is greatly embodied in Ryan Potter's performance, and he manages to bring a lot out about the character. In a way, it's up to Baymax to fill that void that's been left in Hiro's life, acting as both a literal and metaphorical nurse to him. Hiro further owns some of the most straight-up powerful moments of the whole film, the stand-out being his reaction to find out the true identity of the film's villain, in a very dramatic, emotional yet mature scene that brings out the nasty side of both Hiro and Baymax.

 

Of course, no relationship should be one-sided and on the other half of this friendship we have Baymax. Baymax honestly steals the whole film as the standout and most iconic character, and not without good reason. Now I can't say that I've seen every film ever (you'd be surprised how many I haven't seen), but for me, Baymax is simply the most ADORABLE and loveable thing I've ever seen on screen. I could genuinely gush all day about how much I love Baymax, like the fact that I could find tons of happiness in having my own Baymax, or that I could listen to him saying “Oh no” for hours on end, but I won't. However, I will say once again that Baymax steals the show as the immensely huggable and loveable centre of the film, and definitely provides the greatest number of laughs. It's just great to see him waddle around trying to take care of everyone. Scott Adsit further voices Baymax to perfection, getting absolutely everything in his vocal performance at just the right tone and speed, even when Baymax goes into low battery mode, and while that is hilarious to watch, I personally found it even better when the laughs were played straight.

 

But while Big Hero 6 has a strong core with Hiro and Baymax as its lead characters, the remaining characters don't fare quite as well. For one thing, the rest of the titular superheroes that make up Big Hero 6 range from bland with little to their characters, to just plain annoying. In particular, the character of Fred quickly got on my nerves and while younger audiences may enjoy this character, I can't say the same, despite T.J. Miller being suitably cast for the role. Fred and his fellow supporting superheroes barely got anything to do over the course of the film, and even by the time the film reaches its grand finale, they still end up contributing very little. We can't even feel that bad about Tadashi's death, as we simply didn't spend enough time with the character.

 

The writing for our main villain doesn't always work in the character's favour either. However, in general I did find the villain of the film to pretty intimidating for a family audience and his control of Hiro's micro-bots gave him a real sense of power and even fluidity and gracefulness at times. I was also glad to see that later in the film, he's revealed to have understandable motivations for his actions, and these motives even draw some interesting parallels between him and Hiro. But it's such a shame that the writers attempted to build such a poorly-handled mystery around this character. This mystery lasts nearly an hour before the big reveal, but there's only two characters that the villain could realistically be. To make things worse, the film tries to convince you that one of them is definitely the villain, while still trying to be mysterious. All this makes the eventual reveal incredibly obvious even for young audiences, and it's unfortunate that so much wasted energy was put into this “twist” as opposed to fleshing out and improving the other supporting characters.

 

Still, if there's one thing that seems to be unanimously agreed on about Big Hero 6, it's that it looks stunning. The city of San Fransokyo seamlessly combines Western and Eastern culture and architecture, and huge anime influence can be seen clearly in the film's visual style. To be honest, it's a shame that we don't get to see more of San Fransokyo, as there are times when Hiro and Baymax are flying above the city, and everything about it looks so realistic, to the point where if it were real it could pass for filmed footage. The animation is stunning throughout, and even won the creative team an Oscar (and while the film looks amazing, I would personally argue the award should have gone to The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya). The use of colour also pops, thanks to sights like the city lit up at night, the bright red of Baymax's armour and even things like Honey Lemon's colourful explosive mixtures.

 

Overall, Big Hero 6 makes for a thoroughly entertaining watch for all the family. Fans of the original series of comic books from which this film was adapted, may be left disappointed at how far away it is from the original source material, to the point where it could probably stand on its own two feet. However, Big Hero 6 can still boast amazing animation, entertaining action, mature themes and of course, the absolutely adorable Baymax.

Big Hero 6



8/10