Big Hero 6 takes place in a strange fusion of San Francisco and Tokyo. There, teenage genius Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) spends his time hustling at underground robot fights. His brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) convinces him to apply to his college, where the best and brightest work on their incredible inventions. Hiro gets in by inventing a system of miniature robots that can be controlled telepathically, but his celebration is cut short when a fire breaks out and Tadashi dies trying to save his mentor. Devastated, Hiro drops all his plans. But that’s when he accidentally activates Baymax (Scott Adsit), an inflatable robot that Tadashi had built. Baymax stumbles onto a strange plot concerning a villain using Hiro’s miniature robots. Hiro decides that he must stop his villain, and his friends band together to help him out.
Big Hero 6 is a lot of things. It is a superhero origin story, telling the story of a bunch of young geniuses plying their scientific skills in the pursuit of stopping a bad guy. It a story about death and grieving, the film’s emotional core built around Hiro dealing with the pain of losing his brother. It is a fusion of Asian and Western elements. It is also a laugh-out-loud comedy, featuring the antics of a vinyl robot that takes most things literally and acts drunk when his battery is low. It should be too much for the movie to handle, but it just works somehow. Big Hero 6 does get frantic, but it’s got so much heart that it almost doesn’t matter.
The film gets off to a pretty great start with a pretty lengthy prologue that establishes the kind of relationship that Hiro has with his brother. The film takes its time, making it clear just exactly what has been lost here. It allows the movie to later explore surprisingly dark material, as we fully understand the depth of loss that Hiro is feeling. The film doesn’t shy away from the rougher portions of grief, letting its main character get into difficult emotional territory that makes him less of a hero than one might expect. Hiro is hurting, and the film finds its dramatic heights in showing just how much he hurts.
But one must clear that this film isn’t really grim. Its heart is really found in the non-threatening huggable form of Baymax, perhaps one the most elegantly designed characters in Disney history. The film is ultimately about healing, and that concept is fully represented in this robot character, which was designed solely to help people, and in the movie is motivated only by the well-being of others. This is a superhero movie in the end, and that entails fighting. But the film mostly lets that play out in the background. Front and center is the relationship between Hiro and Baymax, and the healing power of having someone who just won’t give up on you.
The superhero story is pretty stock. The rest of the characters are barely developed, and their established character traits don’t really come into play once the action starts. But that’s not such a bad thing. The action is pretty well done, with long, bracing takes that give these scenes a real sense of scale. The film’s design sense is impressive, the Eastern influence giving the movie a very distinct look and feel. Voice acting is terrific. Ryan Potter handles the main character’s emotional journey pretty. Scott Adsit gives Baymax incredible warmth, conveying humanity through the digital effect.
Big Hero 6 does feel a bit overstuffed at times. Its story shifts focus a little too much, struggling to balance all of its disparate elements. But it’s all easy enough to forgive. It’s especially easy to overlook the shortcomings whenever Baymax is on screen. The character is eminently lovable, and he perfectly represents the film’s large, mushy heart. And that’s all we really need.
My Rating:
