With each successive project, Walt Disney Animation Studios advances ahead of its cartoon-pioneering roots. Sure, Walt Disney’s legacy and imagination will never die, but a project such as “Big Hero 6” spurs ahead what the master created in his lifetime.
That’s because “Big Hero 6” is a dazzling showcase of what Disney can do in the 21st century. Adapted from the lesser-known Marvel Comics series of the same name, “Big Hero 6” boasts an impressively staggering 3-D design, top-notch characters and a surprisingly inventive storyline – one that does its best overcoming the faults paired with the similarly modern idea of the superhero movie.
“Big Hero 6” is all-encompassing in regard to its target audience – with an impressively diverse cast to boot – but unlike Disney’s last animated hit “Frozen,” “Big Hero 6” is clearly more boy-oriented. This is mainly due to its principal figures being brothers: Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter), a robotics-obsessed teenage prodigy who likes to spend his time at robot street fights since graduating high school, and Tadashi Hamada (Daniel Henney), his matured, mentor-like elder.
Tadashi works at a high-tech university lab where he develops innovative, but fun, science projects with his friends: the fierce GoGo (Jamie Chung), the upbeat Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), the cautious Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.) and the easygoing Fred (T.J. Miller), all of whom carry enough dynamic personality to give their scenes comedic juice.
The character with the most personality, ironically, is a robot. Each of Tadashi’s friends has a project that reflects upon who they are and what they like, but his is the one that really floors Hiro: a large, marshmallow-like droid named Baymax (Scott Adsit), which Tadashi designed as a nurse to help ailing people. From the get-go, Baymax is hilariously naive, able to make quick judgments based on his artificial intelligence, but slow to move and learn the intricacies of the human condition.
When Tadashi disappears, Baymax takes over the role of looking after Hiro, particularly when a villainous masked man connected to Hiro’s past experiments shows up. Hiro has the idea of using his and his new friends’ skills to take on the enemy, developing them and Baymax into the titular team through a series of exciting sequences and montages.
“Big Hero 6” can’t dodge the fact that it’s a superhero film in an era overloaded by superhero films, but luckily it comes from the studio currently at the helm of the genre. Like “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Big Hero 6” makes the idea of a ragtag bunch of vigilantes enjoyable, but isn’t as original as “The Incredibles” or as grandiose as “The Avengers.”
If “Big Hero 6” goes the way of the franchise – a perfectly reasonable argument, all things considered – Disney may need to tap into its imagination banks to avoid the already visible signs of Marvel derivation. One problem it won’t have, however, is style. Set in the mashed-up city of San Fransokyo, “Big Hero 6” combines American and Japanese cultures to create one of the most impressively rich settings in animation history.
In stereoscopic 3-D, Hiro and Baymax fly over a Japanese-styled Golden Gate Bridge and through the always-active streets of cable cars and skyscrapers. More so than many of Disney’s projects, “Big Hero 6” makes anything look possible in a way that can be easily adored by its youthful audience.
With a heavy amount of adrenaline, computer-generated glee and well-known branding, “Big Hero 6” is what animation in the 21st century should aim to be. Nearly a century after Walt Disney’s artistic beginnings, the product is comparatively unrecognizable in physical form, but just as passionate as anything the man came up with. The product is out of his time, but he would surely be over the moon about it.
“Big Hero 6,” in what is becoming a very satisfyingly revived Disney tradition, is coupled theatrically with an experimental short film. “Feast” is the story of a relationship told from the perspective of a man’s insatiably hungry dog. Like the Oscar-winning “Paperman” before it, the piece is wordless, expressing its emotional storyline through barks and beautifully crafted design. Filled with laughs, sweetness and more laughs, “Feast” is a special entry into Disney’s animated canon, sure to be remembered as affectionately as its feature presentation.
– Sebastian Torrelio