Big Hero 6
Director: Don Hall, Chris Williams
Writer: Jordan Roberts, Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird
Based on: Steven T. Seagle‘s and Duncan Rouleau‘s comic
Cast: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, Maya Rudolph, Abraham Benrubi, Stan Lee
Seen on: 01.02.2015

Plot:
Hiro (Ryan Potter) is super smart and spends most of his time with robot battles and getting into trouble for it. His big brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) tries to convince him that he should join them at the robotics department of their university, where Tadashi himself studies. Hiro is not really excited by the idea – until he visits the campus and sees what everybody is working on, although Tadashi’s medical robot Baymax (Scott Adsit) is the least impressive thing. So Hiro gets to work to get accepted into uni. But the day this happens, catastrophe strikes and Hiro finds himself alone with Baymax, trying to style him into a superhero who can make things right again.

Big Hero 6 was a thoroughly entertaining film with a great sense of humor and a love for the superhero genre in general. I really loved watching it.

I’m not familiar with the comic this film is based on, so I don’t know how much or what they changed and if it was for better or worse. But I gathered that the original was set in Japan and the film now is set in San Fransokyo – which has more in common with San Francisco than Japan, if you ask me. But for an USAmerican adaptation, that probably wasn’t a bad choice since it would probably have led to some very cringeworthy blunders if they had stuck with the Japanese setting. And at least Hiro and Tadashi are half-Japanese and they didn’t completely move away from Japan.

Generally, there is some very nice diversity to the cast. They’re not perfect about it (e.g. Honey Lemon is very blonde for a latina), but how often do we get a superhero team with a single white person? And he is more of comic relief than anything else. I also loved that we got the “tough chick” superheroine as well as a bubbly, girly, pink superheroine. Nicely done.

But the film’s main selling point is, of course, Baymax, and he is wonderful. Do I want one? No, I want like 500. Scott Adsut really wrangles everything from the role and robot speak has rarely been so emotional and sweet and awesome. But from the general buzz around the film before, I expected that I would love him. What I didn’t expect was how intelligently the film handles emotions, especially Hiro’s grif. It is palpable and the film never makes light of it, even if it jokes around it. It’s rare that kids in films are allowed to grief deeply and for longer than just a short montage and it was good to see it.

But that isn’t to say that the film is all doom and gloom. In fact, I was laughing much more than I was crying. But both were necessary.

Summarizing: I loved it.