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| Big Hero 6 (2014) |
The world this film creates is an incredibly distinct one, which is weird considering the movie unashamedly mashed two existing locations together, but it's true. San Francokyo is so vibrant and colourful and just a joy to look at. In fact, the entire movie is animated wonderfully. You can really tell this is a Disney movie; the models all have that Disney design. They do a really great job of emoting when they need to, and believe me I'll get to that. The main thought that came to mind when watching this movie is that they need to make more animated superhero movies. It just feels like the perfect medium for bringing these people to life, and this movie proves that. The powers and insane tech are wonderful to watch, and the way they use movement is glorious. It's never just movement for movement's sake; it's energetic and purposeful. The flight sequence with Hiro and Baymax is especially good. It's like a How to Train Your Dragon flight sequence, but with the backdrop of a futuristic metropolis, and it's brilliant.
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| Ryan Potter as Hiro |
The characters are wonderful, and they're really what make this film so amazing. Hiro is an excellent protagonist, and Ryan Potter does a fantastic job in this role. His arc in this film is just so natural and believable that even when he's doing questionable stuff, not only do you not hate him for it, but you completely understand. Part of that comes down to the emotional core of this movie, and I'll get there, but it just flows so naturally and Hiro's story is just so relatable even if you've never gone through what he has. On that note, Tadashi is used incredibly effectively for how long he's in the movie. It's a real stab in the gut when you see what happens to him, since the movie does such a perfect job of endearing you to him right from the start. The supporting characters are all excellent, as well. Hiro's gang of friends are all unique from each other and very likeable, and even though T.J. Miller is basically just playing T.J. Miller again, he does a very good T.J. Miller, so it's fine. Also, and this is a little weird to single out, but Maya Rudolph as Cass is a very underrated character as far as I'm concerned. It would have been very easy to do either the cruel aunt or the try-hard aunt, but they somehow do neither and we get a really interesting relative character. The movie barely gives her any focus, but I honestly wanted to see more of her.
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| T.J. Miller as Fred |
You may have noticed that I left a very important character out of the above paragraph, and that was because I was saving it for this one: Baymax is unquestionably the best thing this movie has going for it. He completely sells this movie. Scott Adsit absolutely f***ing nails this performance. First of all, Baymax is the comedic highlight. Pretty much everything Baymax does in the first half of this movie is comedic gold, and I almost fell out of my seat the first time I watched the 'low-power' Baymax sequence. The way they equate a robot in low power mode to a drunk person is hysterical. Next, when Baymax needs to get dark in the second act, he gets dark. It's incredibly impressive that I can be laughing my ass off at him in one moment, and then be genuinely terrified of him just a few scenes later. Finally, we have the more emotional moments centred around Baymax and, for the last time, I'll get to that, but suffice it to say, Baymax is absolutely phenomenal in this movie. Just quickly, and it is the other end of the spectrum, but I will say here that while I completely understand why they did what they did, the villain was a bit of a letdown. It's not just that it's another Disney fakeout/twist villain, but when it's revealed who it is and why and how, it completely contradicts how they initially set up the character in the beginning. That's the main problem with Disney's villains in the last few years: they have it be a twist villain for the sake of there being a twist villain, and it's really unfortunate that a film such as this was let down by something like that.
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| Scott Adsit as Baymax |
Okay, in the final paragraph, I can address what I'm sure you're all waiting for me to talk about: how good this movie is compared to the comics it's based on. And, look, I know this film is drastically different than the comics, but I think that's a good thing. Not only were not a lot of people familiar with the original source material, but the changes they make allow them to tell a better story. In the comics, for example, Fred could become an actual kaiju, and that would be incredibly out of place in a movie like this... Alright, I've entertained this joke long enough, let's talk about the emotion. If Tadashi's ending hits you like a stab in the gut, the more emotional scenes in the back half of the movie hit you like a stab in the gut if the knife in question was tied to a runaway truck heading straight towards you at top speed. The genius of the character models and attention to detail therein is that it allows you to feel all of what a character's feeling as they're feeling it. Hiro and Baymax's relationship progresses so naturally that in the last act it's incredibly sad and you cry. You have no choice in the matter. You cry. Combine the character models with the top-notch voice acting and brilliantly written dialogue and you get a stunning movie.
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| Daniel Henney as Tadashi |
Big Hero 6 (2014) is one of my favourite Disney movies of the last decade. I'm honestly blown away by how well this movie has held up over the numerous times I've watched it. Just amazing. 9/10.
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