Thumbnail: While it's at its best as a character bonding comedy as opposed to a superhero movie, Big Hero 6 is a comic joy and an occasionally ripping adventure story that is also a prime example of gender/racial diversity done right.
The Box Office:
Remember last year when, after having seen and loved Frozen, I was hoping-against-hope that the animated fairy tale would at least do as well as the $471 million earned by Wreck It Ralph? Well, I am about to make the same mistake twice. Truth be told, as much as I loved Frozen, it would have been professional malpractice to "predict" that the film would earn $400m domestic and over $1.2 billion worldwide. I write a lot about what I feel are headline-friendly box office predictions often made by those outside the industry which can do real damage when the films don't measure up to exaggerated and potentially unrealistic expectations. Star Wars Episode VII may-well make $1.2 billion worldwide next year, but throwing such a massive number out as what amounts to the minimum bar for success is dangerous and foolish.
As much as I'd love to tell you that Big Hero 6 will fly past the $471m of Wreck It Ralph and comfortably rest somewhere around the $600m of Tangled and the $607m "average" worldwide gross for Pixar films, I don't necessarily want to be the one who stirs the pot to the point where Big Hero 6 is called a disappointment if it "only" makes $400m worldwide. The marketing has been thus-far solid, with most of it emphasizing the young boy and his robot. I would argue that Disney perhaps should have given more airtime to the ensemble team, but that frankly leaves "discovery" for audiences young and old to tell their friends and family about after the film's opening weekend.
The film is technically based on a Marvel comic, but it has been emphasized that it is not part of Marvel Studios, either from their production house or part of their cinematic universe (Kevin Feige made a point to note on Tuesday that he hadn't even seen it yet). The
The big competition is going to be
The Review:
It is an odd thing to discuss a superhero action movie in terms of age-appropriateness. But that's one of the great ironies of becoming a parent. As a kid I thrilled to the dark and violent Tim Burton Batman films and put a premium on how "serious" a given genre film was. Today, as a parent of a seven year old who enjoys a wide variety of entertainments, I feel incredibly silly telling her that "No, you can't see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!" or "Nope, Snow White and the Huntsman isn't really for kids!" That will change in a couple years and I'll start taking her to mass-audience PG-13 entertainments. In the meantime, Big Hero 6 is a perfect in-between entertainment. It is a kid-friendly superhero adventure, something noticeably less violent and intense than the likes of Man of Steel or Guardians of the Galaxy but no less exciting or action-packed. It is also, age-appropriateness aside, a visually gorgeous and richly entertaining comic adventure movie.
The film takes place in a jaw-droppingly beautiful world that is basically a blend of San Francisco and Tokyo. If I were a student of anime and Manga beyond periodic exposure I'm sure I could tell you about all of the influences beyond the obvious, but I'll leave that to more hardcore fans. The film tells what amounts to a relatively conventional superhero tale, one that frankly becomes more generic as it goes on completely with personal stakes and a mysterious masked villain. But the first act is pretty spectacular, as the core characters are introduced and the core relationships are established. The ensemble cast is so joyful and smart and funny that the film loses something once their interaction takes a backseat to the old "hero's journey" material.
The introductory material, which deals with young Hiro (Ryan Potter), his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney), and Tadashi's college friends who welcome the young science prodigy into their world to give him motivation and drive, is absolutely alive with good humor and rich character work. If the film has a major flaw, is that the film 20-25 minutes are so good and alive with rich character interaction and sparkling dialogue that I was a little disappointed when the film became a somewhat standard team superhero origin story.
Tadashi's school pals are an absolute blast to hang out with, and I frankly would have almost preferred a film about the gang trying to win a science fair. But genre demands eventually brings family tragedy into the mix, and the rich chemistry between the siblings and Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), Fred (T.J. Miller), Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.), and Go Go Tamago (Jamie Chung) takes a temporary backseat to mourning and insidious discoveries. But the second act also brings what is the film's trump card, an inflatable medical robot named Baymax (Scott Adsit).
Said robot is without question the funniest and most flat-out entertaining Disney "sidekick" since Robin William's Genie in Aladdin. It's obviously a different kind of dry humor, and the film does turn a bit into a "boy and his dog" type narrative, but Baymax pops up right when the film is getting grim and provides a comic shot in the arm. From here on in, you can probably guess where the movie goes. Hiro uses Baymax to discover that the fire that killed his brother was no accident, and he eventually reunites with his brother's friends and creates superhero costumes and science-based superpowers in order to save the proverbial day. There are some unexpected narrative turns, including a brief descent into bloodlust from one of the good guys, but the latter half feels somewhat assembly line with more of a focus on action than character.
I rather loved these characters and would genuinely like to see a sequel or animated television series. But I think the origin story is merely one they had to get out of the way. Said action sequences are indeed impressive, and there is a second-act car chase that is one of the better action sequences of the year. Baymax does eventually get wings, and there is an extended flying sequence that actually makes me a little sad that Disney didn't screen the film in 3D, even as said sequence seems to be subliminally saying "Suck on this, How to Train Your Dragon!" And while the 34-year old film critic may have wanted something a bit more narratively creative, said critic's seven-year old daughter ate it up. If I could have "gotten away with it," I would have whipped out my cell phone to record said daughter laughing like a drunk hyena and sent the video to Disney's marketing department. The film doesn't have the pathos or even the real-world peril of The Incredibles, but it's a ripping action comedy for kids that has uncommonly lovable characters at its core.
If I may digress for a moment, while the film is technically a "boy-centric" adventure, Big Hero 6 shows how easy it can be to appeal to females merely by making them feel included. There are two major female heroes in the core group, both of whom have distinctive personalities and neither of whom are considered romantic fodder or find themselves needing to be rescued. There is simply no "otherness" to the many women and girls who play roles both big and small during the course of the picture, and it was nice to ask my daughter who her favorite character was and not know exactly who she was going to pick. The same arguably goes to the racial diversity on display, as the film is not just filled with racially diverse characters but also racially diverse voice over actors. None of this is presented with any sense of self-congratulation, which makes it all the more impressive. I talk a lot about female representation in mainstream cinema and racial diversity in blockbuster casting, and Big Hero 6 is exactly what we should be striving for.
Big Hero 6 is a pretty terrific bit of mainstream animated entertainment. It is an absolute pleasure to watch from a visual point-of-view and it is filled with uncommonly well-drawn and sympathetic characters beyond just a few key players. The superhero material is old-hat, but the film gets bonus points for crafting a superhero movie where the superpower is "fun with science." If I'm hard on the superhero origin material, which is all delivered with a knowing humor, it's because I wanted to see a bit more narrative creativity beyond the genre template and because I just wanted to spend more time in the core ensemble where they were doing more talking than fighting.
But by any rational standard, Big Hero 6 is yet another animated triumph from Walt Disney, one that shows the potential in regards to their ownership of the Marvel library. Nearly every joke hits, and my daughter was surprised to find herself crying just a little during a major emotional beat (I assured her that it meant the movie was working). Big Hero 6 is simply great big fun.
