Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? Yes.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? Of course!
Secret ending? Yes.
Running time: 102 minutes (~1.75 hours)
“Big Hero 6” is a 3D animated superhero movie that follows the adventures of Hiro and his robot, Baymax. After a dreadful disaster takes the life of his brother, Hiro finds the robot Baymax and sets out to find the people responsible for the disaster. It features the voice talents of Ryan Potter (Hiro Hamada), Scott Adsit (Baymax), Daniel Henney (Tadashi Hamada), T.J. Miller (Fred), Jamie Chung (Go Go), Damon Wayans Jr (Wasabi), Genesis Rodriguez (Honey Lemon), and James Crowell (Professor Callaghan).
“Big Hero 6” is a coming-of-age story presented as a superhero movie. It’s set in the fictional city of San Fransokyo, and right from the get go the city’s name sets the tone for the film. It’s a fun loving, light hearted movie that manages to take a poignant look at the relationship of two brothers.
Highlights
Ryan Potter’s performance as Hiro Hamada
Ryan Potter gives us a sincere and likeable Hiro, without compromising on the depth of his characterisation, and the emotional changes that he’s going through as a teenager. While a character of Hiro’s age and IQ could have ended up as an insufferable annoyance, Ryan Potter manages to portray Hiro’s intelligence and youthful enthusiasm in a genuine and relatable way.
Hiro’s two brothers
Hiro has two brothers in the film – Tadashi, his biological brother, and Baymax also metaphorically becomes his brother. Baymax also comes to symbolically represent Tadashi, which leads a to a touching scene later in the film where you see just how much Baymax means to Hiro.
It highlights the theme of sibling relationships, because we get to see how Baymax and Hiro’s relationship develop in the film, and the constant parallels to Tadashi are a strong reminder of the origins of Baymax.
Action and special effects
If you’ve come for the superhero action, there’s not much in the first half of the movie – but the second half really ramps it up with the formation of the Big Hero 6 team. The flying scenes with Baymax are especially evocative, and the colourful nature of our heroes’ powers provides a lot of vibrant fight scenes with the villain.
Neat twist on the antagonist of the film
The reveal of the antagonist (since he’s a masked foe for most of the film) is an unexpected but welcome twist. It paints all his actions in a different light once you reflect on the beginning of the movie, and is a stark departure from the usual type of villain you’d expect of the genre.
Letdowns
The villain’s motive is unclear at first
Unfortunately, right after the reveal of the real antagonist, you’re plagued with multiple questions. What exactly is he after? Why has he suddenly become evil? These are answered much later, but in between there’s a tense scene between Hiro and the villain, which comes out of nowhere because you don’t know the bad guy’s motivations and objectives.
Hiro’s artificial angst against the villain
Again, right after the reveal of the big bad, Hiro goes berserk and blames him for his brother’s death. The anger feels forced – there’s no real reason for Hiro to believe what he does, because he doesn’t know anything about the villain is doing yet! It’s like there were a few missing scenes which could have helped explain Hiro’s pent up anger.
It’s strange how Hiro’s brother’s friends quickly become Hiro’s friends
It’s understandable that Hiro, being a young genius, doesn’t have any friends. But it’s a stretch to say that his brother’s friends, whom he has barely known for a month, are suddenly the closest friends he has. It’s quite a leap of logic to make. Doesn’t Hiro have other friends?
“Big Hero 6” is a great animated film that blends action with a strong emotional story. Although some of the plot points might come across awkwardly, on the whole it’s about Hiro and Baymax’s relationship, and how he loses one brother, only to gain another.
“Big Hero 6” opens in cinemas 13 November, 2014 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo Movies Singapore.
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