More Disney than Marvel but Hero has plenty of heart

Baymax

When I heard Big Hero 6 won the Oscar for Best Animated film, I was surprised to see another movie beat out the impressive How To Train Your Dragon 2, which was my pick as the sure winner. Curiosity had me so I decided to take a look at what the fuss was about. The story begins in the fictional city of San Fransokyo (try saying that five times fast) where we meet Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter), a teenager who also happens to be a genius prodigy who graduated high school at the age of 13. Despite his uniquely high intelligence, Hiro squanders his gifts on underground robot matches, not motivated to put his gifts to good use. His older brother Tadashi Hamada (Daniel Henney) takes

him to the university he attends or "nerd school" as Hiro calls it, where he works with other talented people that have used their ingenuity and talent to create ideas to benefit mankind. This gives Hiro the initiative to not only turn his life around but to also attend the school to see his ideas come to fruition. However, a tragedy occurs, leaving Hiro withdrawn from the world, and deciding not to attend the university after all. The only one that can reach out to Hiro is Tamada's invention Baymax, who might be the only one that can help Hiro in his time of need. At first I thought Disney was going to do an animated adaptation of a Marvel comic instead of doing a live-action adaptation as with other Marvel properties. But after viewing the movie and doing a little digging on the comic series, I've noticed several things about the film. For one thing, although it is named after the comic book by Marvel, it should be noted that the movie is loosely based on the comic. Despite what people may think, this is more or less Disney's version and not so much as Marvel's. Disney made several changes to certain characters and to a major extent most of the story background of the Big Hero 6 universe. For instance, one of the characters GoGo Tomago (voiced by Jamie Chung) was actually a convict that was released from prison per agreement if she worked with the team. In the film, there is no reference to that at all; instead it is Hiro that gets thrown into prison although this is played for comical reasons. The biggest difference is Baymax, who looks way different in the comics than he does here. Honestly, I was slightly disappointed with these changes because the comic book series was already interesting enough as it was and could have made for an entirely different movie. That being said, Big Hero 6 is still an enjoyable movie; what is here is Disney's magic at work, filled with colorful characters and solid action but most importantly heart. However you look at it, whether as a comic book nerd or a Disney fan, Big Hero 6 has something for everyone.


-Reviewed by Razor, 3/4/15