Superhero Club: A "Big Hero 6" Review
Robots, Engineers, and an
overdose of cuteness – of course they had to be Asian!
Inspired by Marvel’s Big
Hero 6 (you gotta check it out, it’s more badass), Disney’s Big Hero 6 tells us
about a group of newbie superheroes who took it upon themselves to defeat a
mysterious Kabuki-masked villain. Our
team of young crime-fighters are led by Hiro Hamada, a 14-year old robotics
prodigy who, together with a medical robot called Baymax, is determined to find out if
the bad guy that they’re after has anything to do with his brother’s death.
Big Hero 6 Trailer
Cover to Sunfire and Big Hero 6 #1. Art by Gus Vasquez. Image from Wikipedia |
Now I’m the kind of person who is
fond of light-hearted animated films as much as the disturbing, mind-boggling ones.
For instance, I have been debating with myself whether I should see
Interstellar or Big Hero 6 first (the obvious choice would’ve been
Interstellar), but I ended up seeing the robot movie before the space-age one. Even
if a film’s something that only a 10 year old would enjoy, I can still
appreciate as long as it’s got the right narrative, development, and a good
kick to the heart.
Now Big Hero 6 was all cute and
funny at the right moments, with a little bit of appeal to emotion every now
and then – a good recipe to a family movie, you might say. However, when I was
watching it in the cinema, there seemed to be a disconnect between my
anticipation for the movie and the actual experience of it. As expected from a
Disney film yes, it is funny and cute and yes, it’s got a moral lesson tucked
in somewhere, but it failed to leave a mark on me the way that other Disney
films did and admittedly I’m having a hard time trying to pinpoint the reason
why.
Tell me why?!?! |
Maybe because I was expecting it
as a film anchored on friendship and teamwork (c’mon it’s called Big Hero 6)
but fell short in building up that aspect of the film. There wasn’t enough
development in the build-up of the crew and everything happened too
conveniently fast – somebody dies, a bad guy shows up, and you got a superhero
club popping out of nowhere. It lacked the foundation that similar animations
like Kung Fu Panda had where we were made to invest in the dynamics of the
group. Big Hero 6 gave us cardboard cutout characters, and was a bit confused
whether it wanted to focus on our main character’s new friends, his struggle
with the death of his brother, his unlikely friendship with Baymax, or his
sudden transformation into a Megaman wannabe.
Man, this kid definitely went through a lot of stuff if you ask me.
It's like the robot version of Wreck it Ralph |
My favorite character. Why'd you have to dieeeee |
The saving glory would have been
the action. I was looking forward to seeing our lead characters play around
with their newly acquired superpowers, which of course are based on their
respective fields of specialization. At first, it was so much fun seeing them
fumble and experiment with their gear, but when it’s time for them to fight, I
would have preferred for them to be you know, be good at what they do. The action wasn’t as cool or exciting as I
hoped it to be, and all that I got were cut-frames from one superhero to the
next - Wasabi slices things up, now we
move on to Gogo throwing her disc, then Honey Lemon makes some chemical balls,
cut the scene to show Fred spitting fire, and finally to Baymax flying around
while launching his detachable fist. It’s like the film show us the characters
one by one just for the sake of showing them doing something, not necessarily
because they were needed in the scene.
I’m not saying that Big Hero 6
was awfully bad, oh no it wasn’t at all bad it’s just not as memorable as I
hoped it would be. It did have its appeal (which is really just Baymax) but it
didn’t have as much charm as let’s say, The Incredibles or Kung Fu Panda. It
has a fun script and a unique plot, that is true, and Baymax is definitely
going to be the latest fad in toy stores, but did the movie engage me enough? A good movie would have made me say "yes" right away.
Oh, and this is a Stan Lee cameo we are looking at? |
Credits to the images, videos, and materials used in this post go to "Big Hero 6" and/or to their respective owners. .I do not own these materials. No copyright infringement intended.
No comments
Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment, I would appreciate your feedback :)