MOVIE: Big Hero 6

Image from Wikipedia

At a glance: Disney, futuristic, children's, humour, action


Summary

Hiro Hamada is a child prodigy with seemingly no direction in life until his brother, Tadashi, introduces him to the inventions being created in the laboratories of Tadashi's college. Amongst other things, he meets Tadashi's project - a personal healthcare robot by the name of Baymax.

Determined to get into said college, Hiro conceives of microbots - tiny robots which easily assemble and disassembled based on his thoughts - and presents the project to the Professor Callaghan. Professor Callaghan is impressed, and invites him to join the school.

On the same night, an explosion destroys the building, taking along with it the Professor, Tadashi and all but one of Hiro's microbots. However, the behaviour of Hiro's last microbot indicates that there are still other microbots in existence. As Hiro goes to investigate, with Baymax in tow, he starts to suspect that the explosion is not an accident, and sets out to find the one responsible for his brother's death.


Luna comments

It's a Disney animated movie. I'm a big fan of Disney animated movies, as are a lot of people I know. I really really enjoyed this!

I did really think the setting is awesome - both the idea & the execution. San Fransokyo. This is most probably because I'm Asian myself (even if I'm not Japanese), & so I really appreciate the effort they put into the film to make it an integrated eastern-western society. The cherry blossoms are a nice touch (though if you want to be cynical, you can also say that that's probably the cheapest & fastest way to make allusions to another culture), some of the architecture does give off the feeling of East Asian influence, & the number of East Asian-looking characters is pretty high. & it's not all East Asian- & western-looking character either - there are hints of different races in there. (Of course, this is easy for me to say, because I can consider myself as part of the 'included'.) In fact, most of the 6 heroes look like they're from different ethnic backgrounds.

The city of San Fransokyo - Image from Disney website

Okay, obviously not everything works out smoothly. The first few shots show so many Japanese signs I can't read them fast enough, & yet everyone speaks English, complete with mannerisms & slang of every other children's or young adult movie made in America. In fact, a lot of writing is still in English (e.g. Baymax's display screens). The names are all spoken with American pronunciations (so the protagonist's name is pronounced by almost everyone as HEE-roh & not hi-ro). The characters also act pretty much exactly the same way as you'd expect if they were Anglo-American. I don't have a problem with that. It's just an observation.

Yes, this is ultimately for an English-speaking audience, & for them, too many Japanese insertions would probably make the movie too jarring. Besides, this is still evidently set in America or some similar country.

That was a longwinded way of saying that I can see the work done to try to infiltrate the movie with East Asian touches.

& then the other thing is that this movie is not only more diverse than most in terms of the racial distribution, but also in terms of the body builds of the characters. One of my first thoughts, when I saw Aunt Cass, is that the females in this film are much chubbier than the females in a lot of other animated films (& I don't mean that in a negative way). Their proportions are closer to 'thin person' than 'toothpick'. Their heads are still massive though. Also, the males in this film seem to be the least bulked up. So that was nice.

Otherwise - it's a Disney film. So the animation is beautiful by default, & it's funny. =]

I really liked the characters as well. They're probably a bit stock-standard by now, but they're still likable.

Correction: Hiro is in a large part quite a typical protagonist, but I think he's a little less innocent & a little darker. The movie starts off with him winning a load of money from gambling, which even he acknowledges is "illegal" but "lucrative!" I think that made him a little more interesting. I also liked the closeness between him and his brother, & seeing how Tadashi's words shape Hiro's character.

Baymax is just cute =] & huggable. & often inappropriate for the context. It's hard talking about the character of a robot as robotic as him, but you can call him caring & loyal because that's how he was programmed. I also liked the relationship between him & Hiro, even though I found it a bit too similar to that of Hiccup & Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon 2. (It doesn't help that the characters have certain similarities too, although Hiccup is more heroic & has the very righteous air to him).

I also really like the character of the brother, even though he doesn't have much screentime.

The other characters are also pretty cool, but typical. There's a timid guy, a seemingly ditzy girl, a don't-mess-with-me-I'm-tough girl, & a guy made of pure weirdness. The much cooler thing is that they're 'nerds' & not really action heroes, but make up (kind of) for their weaknesses by using their inventions. Although in this film, cleverness is really just a stepping stone towards owning awesome gadgets, I still feel as if academic intelligence is portrayed in a definitely positive light, which is nice to see.

To me, what let the film down the most is the plotline. It was quite straightforward. Which isn't to say that it's not good - it's a suitable plot for this type of movie. I guess the mistake I made (once again) is that I expected a plot on the level of intricacy of Wreck-It-Ralph, which was not a good bar to set. But that's more in hindsight - I enjoyed the movie heaps when I was watching it.

There were some moments, though, as in almost any (American? sorry...) movie, which were a bit...doubtful. For example, the classic: we've no time to waste, so let's just show off this super-awesome thing we can do - by running super-fast in the opposite direction - before going off to do whatever it is we have to do! & the other: I have a plan! *does not try to immediately put the plan into action*

But because we're all so used to it, it's just something we have to get over in any film, enjoy the effects & the suspense, & then erase from our memories in order to ensure that we are left with the most coherent & logical sequence of events that the film can give us.

My favourite parts

• The opening scenes - Hiro's bot fight followed by the chase that ensues
• Introduction to Baymax
• The fight on the deserted island

Closing

I liked it! I'm also an oversized, overaged child, but it was really good! It was cute, pretty, entertaining, funny, & had a cool team. Highly recommended =]