Walt Disney Animation Studios hit a grand slam last year with the cultural phenomenon “Frozen”, which grossed nearly $1.3 billion worldwide, won two Oscars, and was one of the best films of 2013. The studio’s follow-up, the superhero adventure “Big Hero 6”, will likely make a lot of money, especially overseas, but it’s one of Disney’s weakest animated films of the past 20 years.
“Big Hero 6” is based on a Marvel comic book series not well known in the U.S. The setting is the fictional city of San Fransokyo, which, as you may have guessed, combines the look and feel of San Francisco and Tokyo. 14-year-old Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter of Nickelodeon’s “Supah Ninjas”) is a science and technology geek, just like his older brother Tadashi, who’s attending the city’s prestigious STEM university.
Through a series of events in which the writers take Disney’s trademark “main character must have a loved one die” storyline to another level, Hiro becomes friends with Tadashi’s latest invention: a chubby talking robot named Baymax who’s specifically programmed to be a caretaker. The two join forces with four classmates, becoming Marvel’s kid (and robot) version of “The Avengers”, setting out to defeat an evil, masked supervillain who’s stolen Hiro’s newest creation.
The plot of “Big Hero 6” is about as basic as you can get. Unlike “Frozen”, “Tangled” and other past Disney animated films such as “Chicken Little” and “Brother Bear”, there’s no originality or imagination in a script that easily could have been written in 45 minutes by a 14-year-old. Even “Wreck-It Ralph”, which I was not a big fan of, had some creativity and an edge. Baymax may be round, but this film is flat.
“Big Hero 6” can also be called “How to Train Your Robot”. Directors Don Hall and Chris Williams (who each directed excellent Disney animated films, 2011’s “Winnie the Pooh” and 2008’s “Bolt”, respectively) and a total of eight writers, including two who wrote the comic book, were clearly trying to create a relationship storyline between Hiro and Baymax that mimicked Hiccup and Toothless from DreamWorks’ highly-successful “How to Train Your Dragon” films. But they failed miserably.
So, what we’re left with is a movie with a very narrow target audience: 8-11 year old boys obsessed with superheroes. “Frozen” was able to balance its appeal to both boys and girls even though it was a “Princess movie”. No such luck here. “BH6” will sell tickets, and boatloads of toys and merchandise this holiday season. And, because of the Japanese setting, it will be big internationally. But it’s impossible not to see this simply as a money-making project.
The animation is impressive, but not overly so, and while the action scenes do look good, most drag on way too long in an effort to cover-up for the lack of any drama or suspense. The voice cast is mostly no-names, which would be fine except that none of them stand out, and except for one running fist-bump gag, there are practically no laughs. The most clever element of the entire film actually follows the end credits (and is something Marvel fans will appreciate).
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Big Hero 6” gets a disappointing C-.
Much more enjoyable is Disney’s 2014 short, “Feast”, which runs prior to “BH6”. This delightful 6-minute rom-com tells the story of a dog who loves human food and his human owner who loves…well I can’t give too much away. It’s charming, sweet and satisfying – three things “Big Hero 6” is not.