With apologies to Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-man or any of the X-Men, “Big Hero 6” is the best superhero movie of the year. No film in the genre this year was as exciting or as colorful as this charming kids adaptation of yet another Marvel comic.
It’s a film that takes the genre back to its roots of training, imagination, possibility, heroics and best of all, fantasy. The space opera visuals of “Guardians of the Galaxy” or the gray doom and gloom of Zack Snyder’s Superman pale in comparison to this new Disney classic, in which the fantastical story, the diverse cast of characters and the charm really do feel ripped from a comic book. Hey, even Stan Lee gets his quick cameo.
“Big Hero 6’s” hero is none other than Hiro (Ryan Potter), a Tony Stark in training in the near future, where robotics have progressed to become the primary form of research, industry and even the black market. Hiro spends his time hustling competitors in illegal, underground robot battles, using his seemingly docile bots to make mince meat of the opponents. But it’s only when Hiro’s brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) drags him to a college robotics research facility that he begins to realize his full potential.
In order to earn school admission, Hiro builds highly sophisticated “microbots” that can be manipulated to take any shape. But at the exhibition, a fire breaks out that kills his brother. From the flames, a masked villain emerges with Hiro’s microbots in his command. It’s then up to Hiro to upgrade Tadashi’s friendly healthcare robot Baymax (Scott Asdit) into a fighting machine.
Here is a movie that encourages a sense of innovation, science and invention. Hiro’s dream involves getting into school in order to study, and he’s a visionary with computers and a touch screen in a way that just served as neat visuals in “Iron Man.” He even goes as far as to take the college students’ own research and turn them into practical superpowers. As a team, they have abilities more imaginative than many of the X-Men combined, from a stylish speed skater to colorful goo that traps and confuses enemies.
And yet “Big Hero 6” has less of “The Incredibles” social commentary and more of the training and action that made the superhero genre popular in the first place. The action sequences are extended and comical in the way familiar to many animated kids movies of the last decade, but they’re clear, exciting and never manic.
“Big Hero 6” may fall short of Pixar’s bar in terms of storytelling, but it more than matches it in animation and goofy charm. The film’s climax involves a psychedelic wormhole exploding with color. It’s a shiny spectacle of a movie that really can keep the attention of even younger kids and more jaded adults like myself. Best of all, Baymax is a lovable robot for the ages. His action figure won’t sell off the shelves like last year’s “Frozen,” but his pudgy, blank expressions are ideal for deadpan humor.
Part of the problem with the superhero genre is a crippling need to feel epic, to make each story sprawling in scope and cataclysmic in its action. “Guardians of the Galaxy” had the nerve to make its standout climax a Chris Pratt dance battle. He had fun with the material, and it worked. For years now comic book fans have been trying to stave off the idea that comic books are just for kids, but then you see a movie like “Big Hero 6” and how much fun they’re all having and you wonder, what’s so bad about that?
3 ½ stars