Big Hero 6 had a lot of hype behind it. I saw the preview with the soccer ball so many times that could just about recite it from memory. I’m also a big animation fan so I was stoked when the movie finally dropped . What I ended up seeing was a hit and miss movie with some truly fantastic moments scattered across a sea of mediocrity. It was a beautiful looking cliche riddled animated action comedy and here’s my review.
I have a love hate relationship with Disney so I tend to be hyper critical of them. I tried my hardest to keep an opened mind and I think I did a pretty good job. So in the spirit of staying positive, lets make a compliment sandwich out of this review.
As far as I know Disney didn’t steal this plot from anyone so I have to give them credit for having an original thought. Okay… that wasn’t very positive, was it? Let me try again. Big Hero 6 was very funny. Most of the comedy came from Baymax and was a result of his lack of understanding of human culture or the fact that he’s a giant balloon. The comedy was a mix of slapstick, dead pan, satire, and situational and it all worked quite well. The kids in the theater laughed more than I did but that’s to be expected as I’m a grumpy old adult. Most of the jokes were family appropriate though there were a couple instances where I caught subtle adult jokes thrown into the mix. I don’t want this to scare away any parents. The adult jokes were really subtle and not even that bad. So unless your child has a very adult sense of humor, they won’t get it. There were also quite a few Easter eggs so if you see Big Hero 6 keep your eyes open.
Okay, let’s get to the meat of any good compliment sandwich. The negative. The movie was VERY PREDICTABLE! I guessed the ending and figured out two big secrets long before they were revealed. I expect more from movies. I know that it’s a kids movie but that’s no excuse for sloppy cliche filled writing. The writers tried to fool the viewers by tossing red herrings out left and right but they were too obvious. Communism. Now there was a good red herring (thank you if you get that reference. If you didn’t I can always give you another… Clue). Anywho, back to the writing. The foreshadowing was so blatant even a child who barely form a complete sentences, figured out a big part of the movie shortly after I did. I’ve seen fan fiction with better writing.
The second grievance I had with Big Hero 6 deals with Disney’s propensity to “borrow” ideas. Who knows. Disney could just have bad luck and come up with ideas strikingly similar to work other people have already produced. Use The Lion King and it striking similarity to Kimba the White Lion. I’m not here to debate that and Big Hero 6 wasn’t nearly that bad. The only point I can give out without spoilers is that this movie has a scene with portal technology but the portals themselves looked just like stargates. There are countless other ways the CG producers, or what ever fancy title they may have, could have designed it to be unique, but no. There was even a building that looked like Stargate Command.
With the huge meaty filling of the compliment sandwich out of the way, let me say that the movie was fun. I enjoyed myself when I was able to forget the blaring negative aspects of the movie and watch the colorful moving pictures. Please understand that I’m not trying to imply that kids aren’t bright. I’m just saying that kids tend to be less critical of movies. So where I had to try to get past my critical nature to truly enjoy Big Hero 6, a child will most likely see the fun right off the bat. Like I said before. I’m a crochety old man. I want to buy a house just so I can tell kids to stay off my lawn. But I digress. The point of this bloated paragraph is that Big Hero 6 was enjoyable so it wasn’t a total waste of my money.
In the end I can’t recommend seeing this in theaters without the added benefit of making your child or younger relative happy. You should still see it because, like I said, it was fun. But if you don’t have a kid to take then wait to watch it at home. Big Hero 6 was a fantastic movie held back by poor writing so watch it, but just don’t expect much.
Big Hero 6 gets a 6 out of 11