After nearly two decades, Disney has finally emerged from the big shadow that had been cast over them by Pixar, thanks to the combination of Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen and now Big Hero 6.
Loosely based on a short-lived Marvel comic book series of the same name, the film centers on technological wizz-kid Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) who through classic-Disney tragedy is befriended by his older brothers advanced medical-nurse robot Baymax (voiced by 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit.) When Hiro’s new invention is stolen by a masked mystery man and used to steal various things in the awesome city of San Fransokyo, both Hiro and Baymax, along with some other colourful characters form their own high-tech superhero team.
Now first off before anything else, Baymax is just the most perfect Disney creation to date. He’s a wonderfully warm Michelin-Man that will melt hearts, make you laugh, make you cry and make you want to buy your own Baymax action figure and ignore the judgmental stares of other adults disgusted at the sight of a fully-grown adult buying a children’s toy for themselves. That crying part by the way, is true. I shed tears, 35-year-old man tears during this film.
Where Frozen was aimed squarely at young girls, Big Hero 6 firmly sets its sight on the young male viewer: Cool future inventions, techno-babble and not a single musical number from a character in the film. Disney has managed to capture that childhood wonder for the modern generation of children and young adults. The film is good humoured, well designed and has some fun adventure sequences that really take you back to the first time you saw great kids films like E.T. and The Goonies.
The best part about this film is the fact that Disney have finally found the ability to make modern comedy that isn’t cringe-worthy, and this has been demonstrated in Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph before it so here’s hoping Disney can continue on this path. There are some other great aspects to the film such as the score. Henry Jackman, the man who breathed new life into the Captain America theme in The Winter Soldier, provides a heroic soundtrack that even has elements of other classics like Back to the Future. Jackman is sure to be the go-to guy for action-adventure soundtracks of the future.
There are some borrowed moments from other Marvel films and the climax falls into the repetitive Marvel climax template of the current Phase 2 line-up (yet another giant blue-glowing thing in the sky and stuff just flies everywhere) but this film transcends all that with some really inventive action sequences, amazingly clever visuals and the one thing this climax does that every other Marvel film has failed to do in the past, is make you shed a tear.
Girls will giggle and laugh at Baymax, the lovable inflatable robot, whilst boys will be wide-eyed with all the cool future-tech and the adults that come along for the ride will just love it.
Big Hero 6 gets Four and a half out of five robot-fist-bumps.
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