Why So Blu?

‘Feast’ Your Eyes on ‘Big Hero 6’and Their Big Hearts (Movie Review)

So today’s history lesson focuses on Disney’s acquisition of Marvel Entertainment way back in 2009.  Honestly, I can’t believe it has been that long, but I digress because I’m making money off their acquisition regardless in my stock portfolio.  However, getting back to our history lesson, back then Disney wanted something new and exciting so CEO Bob Iger encouraged his company to explore all of Marvel’s properties, even the unknown ones, to find the next big thing.  The idea was to pick an obscure title out of the bunch so Disney would have the freedom they needed to come up with their own version of the idea.  And that ladies and gentlemen is how this next big thing we are gathered here to discuss was discovered.  Of course I’m talking about Big Hero 6, which we should just get this over already to clear anyone who had this question about this “Marvel” film being produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, it is not part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It is set in its own standalone universe and I am A-OK with that.  So let’s stop stalling in order to make this opening paragraph more robust and impressive and let’s get to talking some Big Hero 6!

First things first, the Marvel characters of Sunfire and Silver Samurai were members of the team in the comics, but they will not appear in this Big Hero 6 adaptation because legally speaking 20th Century Fox holds the film rights to these characters.  They are billed as part of the X-Men franchise.  Go figure!  So this first Disney animated film with “Marvel” characters was directed by both Don Hall and Chris Williams from a screenplay penned by Hall and John Lasseter.  It stars the likes of Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans, Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, T.J. Miller and Maya Rudolph in voice talent roles.

So riddle me this.  What happens when you set out to make a film as ambitious and humorous as The Incredibles was coupled with the heart and brawn of How To Train Your Dragon with a little pinch of old school television mystery akin to Scooby Doo thrown in for good measure?  Well, it’s simple.  Even I know the answer to that!  You get all the ingredients to make Big Hero 6, which in my opinion was successful in its own right and worthy of a followup sequel adventure.  Of course we’ll talk about all the ways in which Big Hero 6 was successful, but for a quick moment I wanted to kind of erratically change topics and chat about Feast.

Feast is the Walt Disney animated short that precedes Big Hero 6.  Feast is billed as the story of one man’s love life as seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.  However, Feast is so much more than that to any mere animal lover.  In fact, it may be one of the most powerful animated shorts I have ever seen in my existence on this humanoid planet.  Honest to God, it had the ENTIRE theater choking up and balling their eyes out.  That’s the grip this animated short had on all, including myself.  I won’t go into anymore details other than that, but those 6 or so minutes were some of the most heart warming and tear inducing moments I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing within animated cells.  For anyone that’s interested in learning more about Feast, check out the short’s 52-second trailer here.  The animated short gives our feature film 6 minutes it has to try and live up to its entire runtime, but I digress.

Although Feast is relevant subject matter to today’s discussion of Big Hero 6, let’s get back to mashing the potatoes and grilling the meat that we’re all gathered here today to consume.  Big Hero 6 is set in the fictional city of San Fransokyo, a compromise obviously between San Francisco and Tokyo.  Our story revolves around a juvenile delinquent, robotics prodigy named Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter).  Living under the roof of his Aunt Cass, Hiro’s older brother, Tadashi Hamada (Daniel Henney), takes him under his wings, and with the help of his nerdy science friends Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), GoGo Tomago (Jamie Chung) and the hilarious Fred (T.J. Miller), they convince the youngster to attend their robotics college.  Of course, that convincing wouldn’t have been possible if not for the introduction of Tadashi’s medical robot creation, Baymax (Scott Adsit).  Hero really never knew the secret and let’s call it smart life of his brother Tadashi and for the first time ever in his young life, Hiro wanted to be part of something special.  However, to become a part of this all, Hiro had to prove himself worthy of being accepted by the college.  That’s really where our story begins and all hell breaks loose, pardon my vernacular.

Like I said up above, Big Hero 6 is pretty much what you’d expect to see if you strolled in as a fan of The Incredibles and How to Train Your Dragon.  In my opinion that’s not a bad comparison to make or even a bad moniker for a movie title to be mentioned along with those two classics.  However, I could not help from feeling bored a little bit during Big Hero 6.  The comedic moments with Baymax and the hilarious antics of the character of Fred kept my attention span in the game, but the subject matter kind of felt a bit shelved.  I don’t know what it was, but it all kind of melted together.  Like How to Train Your Dragon, the plot can get a bit dark here as there’s a lot of death and grieving go on, but also at the other end of the spectrum you already know going in that it’s a superhero movie so you kind of have to expect some version of redemption, don’t you?  Absolutely!  So as long as you believe your kids can appropriately handle topics such as death of family members, there’s nothing to be afraid of here.  I believe they’ll have just as good of a time as they would with any Disney adventure and will be wanting to fly high in the sky with a Baymax robot of their very own.  There’s no denying the inflatable guy is really cute.  I’ll even lay my man card down for that statement.

What it all boils down to is the fact that Big Hero 6 is very much a coming of age story for Hiro.  One could kind of make the comparison to last year’s Oscar nominee Nebraska.  Like the character of the son in Nebraska, who learns all about his father and discovers juicy tidbits he never knew about the man before during their adventure, Hiro does the same of his family, and with the help of those friends I mentioned two paragraphs above, he realizes there’s more to him than meets the eye.  Heck!  All the friends kind of realize the same thing about themselves.  They don’t call the movie Big Hero 6 for nothing, right?  There’s also no denying that this film is big on heart and of course friendship, but you’ll see what I’m talking about when you take it all in on the big screen.  And make sure to stay after the credits!  Like in all Marvel films (minus the worthless after credits scene in Guardians of the Galaxy), there’s a valid reason to want to watch those credits roll to the very end.  Enjoy!

Brian White

Owner/Writer/Reviewer/Editor, Dreamer, Producer, Agent of Love, Film Lover, Writer of Screenplays and a Devoted Apostle to all things Ford Mustangs (the real ones with V8's!). Some of my favorite films include FIGHT CLUB, MOULIN ROUGE, THE DARK KNIGHT, STAR WARS alongside television shows such as SEINFELD, 24, SANFORD & SON and even the often loathed in the geek community BIG BANG THEORY. Outside of my three lives I live I also enjoy spending time with my girlfriend and our three girls (of the furry kind).