Big Hero 6

Based on an obscure Marvel comic book, Big Hero 6 follows Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) as he becomes a bona fide superhero after teaming up with a ragtag crew of gifted friends. There’s little doubt that Big Hero 6 fares much better in its first half than second, as filmmakers Don Hall and Chris Williams have infused the early part of the movie with a fast-paced and impressively energetic feel that proves impossible to resist – with the film’s compulsively watchable atmosphere heightened by its memorable characters and vibrant animation style. It’s clear, too, that the film benefits substantially from the thoroughly appealing relationship between Hiro and his brother’s robotic creation, Baymax (Scott Adsit), while the movie’s laundry list of affable periphery figures, including T.J. Miller’s Fred and James Cromwell’s Robert, perpetuate the thoroughly agreeable vibe. It’s rather disappointing to note, then, that the film takes a turn for the worse past a certain point, as Hall and Williams slowly-but-surely transform Big Hero 6 into just another run-of-the-mill, hopelessly generic superhero movie. The narrative’s growing emphasis on the title group’s origin story is tedious and overly familiar, while the excess of action that crops up towards the end ensures that Big Hero 6, in its final stretch, becomes an almost interminable experience. The end result is a Disney flick that fares just as poorly as the company’s other 2014 endeavor, Planes: Fire & Rescue, with the movie’s failure made all-the-more-disappointing given the effectiveness of its opening half hour.

** out of ****