DON HALL, CHRIS WILLIAMS
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBBBB.
USA, 2014. FortyFour Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures. Screenplay by Jordan Roberts, Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, based on the Big Hero 6 team and characters created by Steven T. Seagle, Duncan Rouleau, Joe Kelly, Joe Casey. Cinematography by Rob Dressel. Produced by Roy Conli. Music by Henry Jackman. Production Design by Paul A. Felix. Film Editing by Tim Mertens. Academy Awards 2014. Golden Globe Awards 2014. North Carolina Film Critics Awards 2014. Phoenix Film Critics Awards 2014.
Imagination explodes all over the screen in this heartwarming adventure based on the Marvel characters. Despite being a genius who graduated high school at 13, Hiro spends his days and nights working on little robots that he enters into illegal competitive bot fights. His older brother Tadashi wants him to straighten up and do something more useful with himself, inspiring him by bringing him to his school’s lab where he works on advanced robotic technology with his best friends, all of them geniuses in their own right. Hiro loves the place and enters a science fair competition to get into the institute, but his plans are dashed when his presentation ends in a huge fire that has tragic consequences. A surviving artifact from this disaster is a healthcare robot named Baymax that provides our brokenhearted hero with a caregiver and friend, which he’ll need when he discovers that the microbot technology that he created for the science fair has shown up in the hands of a villain with revenge on his mind. Drawn into the fracas are Tadashi’s fellow students from the institute, who gather round our little protagonist with their own brand of scientific expertise to go on an adventure that will fight both evil and grief. This film is Disney hitting its highest points of achievement, from the stunning cityscapes of “San Franstokyo” that populate the background, to the inventive screenplay that, despite its liberally taking many of its plot cues from Spider-Man 2, highlights a host of amiable characters and incorporates wonderful action and touching emotional moments at an even keel.
