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Big Hero 6 - Spoiler-free review


Nathan Strum

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I went to see Big Hero 6 well over a month ago during the Thanksgiving weekend, so this review is a bit late. In fact it's really late, because I saw the movie a couple of weeks before that, and still hadn't written a review.

 

I first saw it at work, when co-director Don Hall screened it for our students, and did a Q&A afterwards. This was a great chance for the student to see the film and hear Don talk about it, but I was stuck halfway behind a pillar in the back corner of the room during the screening, so it wasn't the best way to see it for me. So I decided to go see it again at a movie theater. (You can read interviews with Don and co-director Chris Williams here and here - but beware of spoilers!)

 

Big Hero 6 is loosely adapted from an obscure limited series comic book from Marvel. Having no familiarity with the original, I had no expectations going into the movie, other than it had something to do with a big, inflatable robot. The story revolves around a young robotics whiz named Hiro, who has one of his inventions stolen and uses a robot his brother created and various technologies to trick out some of his techie friends to try to stop the bad guy from using it for nefarious purposes.

 

While an entertaining enough film (there are some solid action scenes and a really great car chase involving plenty of gratuitous handbrake action), I never really empathized with the main characters. They're just all a bit too shallow and predictable. Hiro goes through a pretty typical character arc, and his friends' personalities seemed very cliché and one-dimensional (the most interesting is the stoner-esque character Fred, but mostly because he has the funniest lines of any of the humans). Once they get their abilities, their sudden prowess with them gets completely glossed-over in what my be the briefest "learning their powers" montage in the history of superhero movies. Even the villain fell flat, personality-wise - it's only his stolen tech that makes him interesting. The best character in the movie - by far - is the aforementioned big, inflatable robot - Baymax. He's easily the most compelling of the group, having the best lines, the most heart (despite being a robot), and he's the most fun to watch. Seeing the movie in a room full of animation students was especially fun whenever Baymax was onscreen because they'd respond to wonderful little moments in his animation that might go missed by most audiences. He's really the star of this film - it's heart and soul. Story-wise, it's all pretty predictable fare. It'd be hard not to tell where the movie was going.

 

Criticisms aside, Big Hero 6 is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. It's a pretty fun ride, and Baymax alone makes it worth seeing - the character animation on him is as good as anything you'd see in the best Pixar films (if not better). Beyond that is the phenomenal design of the film. The mythical San Fransokyo is a triumph of design and a stellar showcase for the new Hyperion rendering technology that Disney used on the film for the first time. The attention to detail is amazing and the visuals are often fantastic. This film really brings Disney CG animation to a new level.

 

Big Hero 6 is worth seeing (and yes... stay for a post-credits bonus scene), but maybe at just a matinee price. In the end, it's brought down by flat characters and an all-too predictable story. It's not on the level of either Wreck-It Ralph or The Incredibles, but it's still a good movie, and Baymax is terrific fun to watch.

 

On a scale of 1-10, Big Hero 6 gets a 7.

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