Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Movie Review: Big Hero 6.

When Disney Enterprises purchased Marvel a few years ago, there was plenty of new creative material to add to Disney's production schedule. Some examples are The Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron (2015) and it's associated superhero stories. But they also now owned the rights to a whole library of comic books and graphic novels.John Lasseter saw some pitches from Disney creatives  and decided to make Big Hero 6 - an action comedy with a big heart.


Baymax and Hiro.



The creative aspects of this movie are splendidly excellent.The visual design is delightfully colorful but also classy and appealing. It has an aptly dramatic and emotionally moving score created by Henry Jackman (X-Men, First Class & Wreck-It Ralph.

This movie is well-crafted in it's writing - it is very funny. Many of the jokes are to do with the robot Baymax's unique way of thinking and saying things. Technical aspects like Baymax running out of battery power also give the audience lots of laughter.



There are grand, almost spiritual themes explored such as self-sacrifice and serving others. 
There is a theme of "the darkness within" as a character wrestles with the desire to seek vengeance on another character.  covers deep and personal themes of loss, family, friendship. 


I really enjoyed it. As a Disney movie, I found this was better than Frozen and way, way better than Wreck-It Ralph. There was fun and exciting action that adds to the story-line The movie also appeals to a slightly more mature audience than the other recent Disney films. This is due to the sophisticated story-line and more relate-able characters.




One thing I would say at this point is that it is refreshing  to see a young teenager depicted as the main character instead of a older teenager or young adult. This gives a different perspective to the story. It is also nice to see an animated Disney movie set in a modern city world, rather than a fairy-tale kingdom (Tangled, Frozen) or a fantasy Video Game world (Wreck-It Ralph. There was nothing wrong with those settings for those stories - but this dynamic is something I enjoyed with Big Hero 6.

I'm looking forward to finding out which other new stories Disney brings us - whether they be from Marvel's story bank or elsewhere. And I boldly declare it - we are definitely in a new golden age for Disney animation!

And one last thing - if you like extra scenes in the credits, then stay in the theater through the credits, and I don't think you'll be disappointed!






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