Film Review: Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6 is the result of the first collaboration between Disney and Marvel. The story is based on the equally named comic book series from Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle. The film mainly drew my attention when I heard that it would have a combination of Western and Japanese animation. Time to take a look!

The animation from Big Hero 6 is a unique combination from the standard Western animation and the Japanese animation. Approximately ninety animators have worked on this film, who of course all delivered a contribution to the lay-out of San Fransokyo, a fictive combination of San Francisco and Tokyo. Technically the whole film is a combination of the Western (mainly California) and the Eastern (mainly Japanese) culture. The reason that Disney wanted to mix San Francisco with Tokyo was because San Francisco hasn’t been used by Marvel before, and because they thought that Tokyo would fit good together with San Francisco. The filmmakers had the idea that San Fransokyo is a city in a parallel universe in which San Francisco largely was rebuilt by Japanese immigrants, after the disastrous earthquake from 1906. Although this hasn’t been said in the film itself.

The film takes place in the fictive city San Fransokyo. Hiro, a 14-year-old genius, wastes his time with bot fights (a hobby in which you build your own fighting robot and challenge other robots for a fight). His older brother, Tadashi, thinks Hiro is wasting his talent and takes him to his school with him. That is where Hiro meets Tadashi’s friends; GoGo Tamago, Honey Lemon, Wasabi, and Fred. Tadashi also introduces him to his project; Baymax, a friendly robot who probably is revolutionary for the health care. Hiro also meets the brilliant Professor Robert Callaghan, which is the final push for him to want to attend this school. Before that he has to invent something that will blow Professor Callaghan away, but Hiro’s invention gets stolen by a guy with a Kabuki mask. Together with his new friends and Baymax he forms a superhero team to get his invention back and stop the bad guy.

The film Big Hero 6 has won an Annie Award for the best animated effects within an animated film, an award for the best animated film from the Nevada Film Critics Society, and two awards from the Women Film Critics Circle; one for the best animated film, and one for the best sentences in a film: “Stop whining, woman up.”

Big Hero 6 is a typical Disney film, but on the other side it’s also very different from what we’re used to from Disney. Of course, the love between family and friends is central in the story, but there are also things happening that don’t happen as often in Disney films. Such as the scene in which a character dies, not something you would do to a kid. Kids in the cinema were even crying by one of these scenes.

However, the film also has quite some humor, actually, a lot of humor, more than I, personally, am used to coming from Disney…enfin that isn’t bad of course. The combination of humor, action, tension, and drama make this film in my opinion absolutely great and I highly recommend watching this film in the cinema at the 11th of February.

Rating: 90/100