Well, it’s the review that you all have been waiting for: my review of the 54th Disney Canon film that won the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar in the 87th Academy Awards, Big Hero 6!
Too bad. Here’s my review!
I hesitate in describing this film much because I don’t want to give too much away. Basically, it’s about a young teenager named Hiro Hamada, voiced by Ryan Potter, who’s a genius for his age and spends his time participating in illegal bot-fights (underground fighting between controllable robots with betting involved).
This changes when his older brother, Tadashi, voiced by Daniel Henney, shows him the robotics lab of the university which he attends. Hiro then decides that he must do all he can to be accepted into this university! Since, he’s a genius, the university won’t care about his age. All he has to do is invent something that will sweep the head of the robotics program off his proverbial feet!
I don’t even wanna say more because I feel too much will be given away! Let’s just say that stuff happens, a plethora of side characters makes appearances, and Hiro comes into contact with a masked supervillain.
So, would I say this is a good movie? Yeah, I would. Would I say this is an excellent movie? Um…no, I wouldn’t say so.
What makes this film good? Well, the biggest thing that makes this movie good are the characters. This film has a plethora of characters from Hiro and Tadashi to Tadashi’s fellow robotics program participants to an inflatable, huggable health-care robot. All of the characters are extremely relatable! They each have different ethnicities and personalities. One character’s the goofball, one’s the perky one, one’s the no-nonsense one, one’s the cautious one, etc. My favorite character is the robot named Baymax, voiced by Scott Adsit who does an amazing job!
The other voice actors aren’t all that bad either. It’s nice to see an animated film where the majority of the voice actors aren’t big A-list celebrities.
“Of course not, I merely meant to say…what I mean is…you’re…you see, you’re a…”
“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”
The animation is pretty standard. There wasn’t any scene where I was blown away by the animation as I was by other films such as How to Train Your Dragon 2, but I had no complaints with the animation either.
So, what makes this film bad? Well…I don’t think there’s anything I can pinpoint that makes this film BAD per se, rather there are elements that prevent this film from being great. The biggest monkey wrench in the works is the overall plot. The story (as you may surmise from the presence of a supervillain) is a superhero film in its essence. This is Disney Animation’s first such feature and it really shows. Like I said, it’s not bad, but the slight weakness of it prevents the film from being great.
Also, the pacing is a bit of a problem at times. Sometimes things seem to be going normally, then a whole bunch of stuff seems to happen all at once, then stuff seems to slow down, it’s all over the place!
In the end, the film is good enough for me not to get upset that it won the Oscar (although I personally predicted How to Train Your Dragon 2 to win thereby costing me on my total predictions outcome). This film is good enough to keep the Disney Revival going and it’s a film that you should check out for yourself!
The Animation Commendation 
I knew that you would eb doing your review for it soon, and
Crap. Accidentally typed Enter.
I knew that you would be doing your review for it soon, and I generally agree with your sentiments with it being good, but nothing above that, for the same reasons you think. I would not say it is worse than Meet the Robinsons, but I understand everything you are stating involving this film.
I just have a strong affinity for ‘Meet the Robinsons’.
I pretty much agree 100%. I liked the characters, especially Baymax. But the overall plot just had a very “generic superhero film” feel to it. A good movie but not one of my all time favorites – and I actually haven’t seen Meet the Robinsons yet so I can’t comment!
Cool, I personally love ‘Meet the Robinsons’, so I might be a bit biased towards it.
I definitely liked it more than you but i can see your point of view. I was just so bonded with the relationship of the brothers. I thought the villains motivation was clever and I agree Baymax is so special. I was glad it won if not Lego because I felt it was more emotionally grounded and both Dragon and Boxtrolls felt more like something I’ve seen before, as great as they are.
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for commenting!
There are very few Disney Canon films that I don’t enjoy.
🙂 Me too! Even the ones i gave low scores to when compared to movies as a whole I have some nice things to say
I agree with you about this movie. I don’t tend to like superhero films but this was not bad. Baymax was the definite stand-out, such an exceptionally amazing character that I wish every other element in the movie matched up.
Also I did enjoy the “hairy baby” gag, mostly because it’s a joke in my family to compare our cat to a mutant of a human baby covered in hair.
I definitely agree about this being good enough to keep the Disney Revival alive. If Wreck-It Ralph is The Great Mouse Detective and Frozen is The Little Mermaid, and we’ve bypassed Oliver & Company entirely, then this is The Rescuers Down Under, so I’d say we still have a lot to look forward to!
One last note: “Bot fighting isn’t illegal. Betting on bot fights, however, that is extremely illegal… and also very lucrative”.
Ah…lucrative!
I loved Big Hero 6, but didn’t think it deserved the Oscar, even though I loved it. Loved Baymax. One of my favorite scenes though, is still the beginning: the Bot fighting. Nice way to open a movie.
It was quite a surprising opening; I didn’t expect that.
Apart from the sci-fi elements, this did feel significantly more realistic than your average Disney animated film.
I guess. I personally don’t really look towards movies for being realistic.
Not surprising. I met one man recently who was a 53-year old school administrator who showed me his whole home office decorated in Disney memorabilia and he told me he didn’t watch Mad Men because he’s “more into fantasy”.
Personally I like fantasy a lot, but only when it has a connection to reality, which most fantasy actually does, surprisingly. But I’ve found I tend to hate science fiction worlds that we’re just thrown into and made to sink or swim. That’s just my taste.
I think it was okay but not great. The action elements was were this movie was weakest. When it was about a sad boy and his robot, it was good. The rest of the story was “meh”.
I felt like it was a weak version of Lilo and Stitch. Where Lilo and Stitch was a sweet and original tale about family, this ditched that and tried to be a cool movie about superheros.
I also put this right around Meet Te Robinsons and Oliver and Company. Sort of a let down after the terrific “Frozen”
Glad to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for commenting!
Don’t worry. I didn’t find that joke funny either.
Glad I wasn’t the only one!
While I thought this movie was really good, I have to agree with you on its pacing which was kinda weak. And I also found the story to be a little less cohesive and flowing than the Disney films that came before it like Tangled and Frozen. But besides that, I thought Big Hero 6 was really creative and fun! And the introduction of the film; the bot fighting scene as well as the scene in the middle of the film when Hiro is flying on Baymax were my favorite scenes in the whole film!
Thanks for commenting!
Yeah, the film was a good attempt, but there are definitely flaws.
Yay, Phantom reference! Thanks, Mark! I’m hopefully going to go see this at the weekend for my friend’s 21st birthday (you’re never too old for a Disney film, right?)
xxx
Jegsy, nice to see you on my blog!
And nope, there is no age limit for a Disney film!
I love this movie!:)
Awesome to hear!
Just saw it. Really liked it. Can’t say it was perfect, but overall, it was good.
Pretty much my thoughts as well.
I think I liked it more than you did. I liked the look and characters.
I may like it more on rewatches now than I did then, but it’s still not a favorite.