-Before We Start Today’s Review, I’m Here to Give You a Small Disclaimer (Not Spoilers, Just a Reminder) That This Episode is Dedicated to the Victims of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, Fourteen Years Ago. If You Experienced This Tragic Day or Feel Uncomfortable Reading Anything Involving Fires or Explosions, I Advice You to Please Turn Back If You Don’t Want to Relive That Traumatic Event. Thank You For Reading This and Now, Onto The Actual Post-
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING YOU’RE ABOUT TO SEE MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!! TURN BACK IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS MOVIE YET!!!!!
-We Now Join Our Regularly Scheduled Post, Already in Progress-
Hello, I’m The Detective Librarian and remember the time when Disney (or as I like to call them, “The Money-Making Monsters”) came up one day and said this?: “Hey, we’re lacking money from our film productions and classic short films! Why don’t we buy Marvel Superhero Comics AKA DC Comics’ rival company and the 2nd most popular comic book company in the world?! After all, they made ‘Spider-Man’, ‘The X-Men’, ‘The Avengers’, and all those other superhero celebrities, while we made animation in the 1920’s – 2000’s and now use CGI and bought ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ and other films by Steven Spielburgh and George Lucas!!! So, let’s by ‘Marvel’!!!” I apologize to those Disney fans out there who read that quote, but I just had to because of Disney buying classic franchises being REALLY unnecessary, while they make box-office animation for the cinema and the kids, while having their own channel buy crappy sitcoms and newer animation shows.
But, aside from that, remember the movie that I mentioned in my “Top 10 Best Movies of All Time”, “Big Hero 6”. As you can tell, I did enjoy it and I rewatched it while I was on vacation last month. Please note that this movie comes to mind when reviewing a movie that you’ve seen and saw for the 2nd or third time, meaning that you want to review it right now. So, with that said, “Big Hero 6”, based off of the Marvel Superhero comic characters of the same name and first came out in theaters in the US on November 7, 2014. Keep in mind that this movie contains a popular character that might beat Olaf from Disney’s previous flick (and most popular box-office success and the one movie everybody can’t stop talking about), “Frozen”, which I’ll get around to sometime. So, who is this cute and cuddly, inflatable character, well, let’s find out, by taking a look at “Big Hero 6”.
So, we start off this film with some very beautiful animation and shots at the main location of the movie, San Fransokyo (which is actually a mixture of Tokyo, Japan and San Francisco, California), AKA a Futuristic Japanese version of San Francisco, California. We then cut to an alley, where we get introduced to our main hero of the movie, Hiro Hamada *Ba Dum Tsh* (played by Ryan Potter), who is a young 14-year old robotic genius that just graduated high school because of his intelligent brain at age thirteen(which is CRAZY) and now spends his time doing Bot Fighting. Now, you may think that name is obvious and Bot Fighting is the kid-friendly version of dog-fighting (which is also illegal), but remember again, Disney’s making it good for kids, everybody! Anyways, Hiro goes up against a Giant Bot Fighter who beats Hiro the first time, but loses the second time due to his small rival. 😉 As you’d expect, The Giant Bot Fighter is furious at losing against Hiro and is about to attack him, along with some thugs AKA other bot fighters, until Hiro’s older brother, Tadashi (played by Daniel Henney), conveniently arrives on a motorcycle to come and rescue him. He scolds his younger brother for doing illegal bot fighting and we get a little chase scene between Hiro and Tadashi and the other bot fighters, until they get surrounded by the police and are taken into custody.
After the police allow them to leave the police station, the two boys get picked up by their Aunt Cass (played by Maya Rudolph), who has been raising Tadashi and Hiro, ever since their parents died years before this story begins. She also runs a cafe where she and the two brothers currently live and speak of the devil because Cass angrily drives them home to the cafe, while acting a like a complete goofball (just like Marion the Steamshovel from “Thomas & Friends”). Hiro and Tadashi go upstairs to their room, where Tadashi tells Hiro that he needs to go to college to use his smart brain and reveal it to other people around him. That means going to Tadashi’s school/college/university, or as Hiro calls it, “Nerd School”. So, Tadashi drives Hiro to his university to show him around and meet his teacher, Professor Robert Callaghan, the head of the University (played by James Cromwell), and his friends, GoGo, an athletic and Gothic girl that looks like Wyldstyle for “The LEGO Movie” (played by Elizabeth Banks– I mean, Jamie Chung), T.J. Miller as Fred, a comic book fan that is the mascot of the University AKA San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, a cautious and smart guy named Wasabi (played by Damon Wayans Jr.), and an enthusiastic chemist named Honey Lemon (voiced by Genesis Rodriguez). Hiro sees the inventions that Tadashi’s friends made inside the lab of the University, including Tadashi’s invention AKA one of the main characters and the most popular character of the movie, Baymax, an inflatable and huggable robot nurse (portrayed by Scott Adist) and here’s how his introduction goes.:
Again, as you’d expect, Hiro is amazed by Tadashi and his nerdy friends’ inventions and is raring to get into school ASAP. Now, in order to get in, he must sign up for the school’s Science Fair and he has to pass, in order to get enrolled in the school. Now, if I was Hiro I would have MAJOR anxiety over that but imagine if I created an invention for the Science Fair, like this. *Ahem*
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: “The Video-Game Compilation Console”!!!! It’s where you get to play ALL video games that are compatible to the console, such as the Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox, 360, and Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, and other home consoles, except for the handheld consoles like the Gameboy Advanced and the Nintendo DS or 3DS. Including “Sonic Adventure 2 (Battle)”, “Super Monkey Ball 1 & 2”, “Mario Kart: Double Dash”, etc…. Sound fun?
AUDIENCE:…….*Cricket Noises*
RANDOM BOY: Uh, Detective?
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Yes?
RANDOM BOY: Wouldn’t that be an entire waste to the environment?
RANDOM GIRL: Yeah, it might create an electromagnetic pulse in the electric system.
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Oh, come on! What’s the worse that could happen? Let’s try it on now.
AUDIENCE & SCRIPT PERSON: NO, DETECTIVE!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO– *Click* *Power Goes Out*
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Okay. Sorry about that! Anyways, back to the story.
Hiro and Tadashi work together in creating the new invention for the Science Fair and the big day finally arrives. Hiro presents his invention, which are microbots, swarms of tiny little robots that can be connected together in any shape and any size with an transmitter on Hiro’s head, like a swarm of bees. Professor Callaghan is impressed over Hiro’s imaginative creation and offers him to go to the school, while we get introduced to another character named Alistair Krei, the CEO of Krei Tech, who offers Hiro to buy his microbots. But, Callaghan warns Hiro and of course, he takes Callaghan’s advice and warns Krei that the microbots aren’t for sale, before he joins his friends, brother, and Aunt to go out of the building to celebrate. While we get a little bonding scene between Hiro and Tadashi, the two brothers hear a commotion that a fire just broke out at the School and Professor Callaghan is trapped inside. Tadashi risks his life to try and rescue Callaghan, while leaving Hiro outside, but he fails when the burning building explodes and kills Tadashi and the Professor inside. We then get a emotional scene over Hiro and everybody attending Tadashi and Callaghan’s funeral, while Hiro is left in major grief over the loss of his one and only brother.
After the events of the funeral and the tragic deaths of two important characters (*SPOILER ALERT*), Hiro is now in major depression over the recent events and hasn’t still accepted the offer to go to Tadashi’s former college and accidentally activated Baymax. And as you can tell, we get a funny scene here.:
Uh, Baymax, puberty is what most teenagers experience these days. As Hiro struggles to put Baymax inside his charger-thingy, he accidentally stumbles upon a microbot that somehow made it to his sweatshirt, even though they were destroyed in the fire. He examines it and discovers that the microbot is pointing towards a different location, leaving Baymax to follow it like a compass and go out on the street, outside the cafe. This causes Hiro to chase after him and lie to Cass about going to the University (which would get him into trouble, if he told her the truth). The chase scene starts with Hiro following Baymax on the streets of San Fransokyo and leading him into an abandoned warehouse, which is where the microbot is leading them to. The two of them sneak inside the warehouse and we get more funny scenes of Baymax inflating like a fart joke, while Hiro makes a shocking discovery. His microbots are inside, meaning that someone is making more and new microbots, which could be the main villain of this film.
After we get another funny scene of Baymax involving the expression “heart attack”, the microbots suddenly start to attack our heroes. Hiro and Baymax try to escape from the microbots and encounter the controller of the microbots AKA the main villain of the movie, a mysterious man in a Kabuki mask AKA Yokai. He uses the microbots to attack the two heroes, until they fall off and land on the ground and head towards the police station. Hiro and Baymax try to tell the police what had happened, but Baymax is low on battery and the police asks Hiro to write his name and number to call (as they say “parents”) Cass, but the two of them leave. Hiro and Baymax arrive back at the cafe and now, Baymax is fully low and acting drunk, like this.:
I know what you’re thinking, what are you thinking, Shining Armor?:
SHINING ARMOR:
SHINING ARMOR: I’m amused! At least I didn’t die in the “MLP: FIM” franchise AKA the Brony fandom.
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: That’s true, but at least you weren’t really drunk/drugged when you were brainwashed by Queen Chrysalis, the queen of the changelings.
SHINING ARMOR: Don’t remind me! Anyways, I gotta go, Twilight and Cadence are waiting for me at Canterlot in Equestria.
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Okay, bye!!
As soon as Baymax gets fully charged upstairs in Hiro’s room, Hiro and Baymax have a brief conversation about Tadashi’s death and the fire that took his life that was considered an accident, or if it WASN’T an accident! 😉 Hiro realizes that the Man in the Mask caused the fire to cover his tracks and stole his microbots as well, meaning that they have to bring him down to avenge Tadashi. But first, Hiro must help Baymax get new armor and karate moves during the first montage of the movie about Hiro creating new armor and moves, the same ones I mentioned earlier. After the first montage of training, Hiro gives Baymax the “fist bump” aka a “brofist” or a “brohoof”!! 😉 :
Baymax, everybody! He’ll be the next popular meme with his fist bump and adorable moments, besides Olaf, which remember, he might not know about!! Later that night, Hiro and Baymax sneak into the docks to track down the Masked Villain and find him in the ocean that throws a giant debris/portal piece at him with a sparrow symbol on it. Just then, Wasabi, GoGo, Honey Lemon, and Fred arrive in a car (conveniently) because earlier at Hiro’s room, Hiro accidentally contacted Tadashi’s friends by using Baymax, like a phone or a computer on emails. They get surprised over Baymax’s new upgrades and are attacked by the Villain, who chases after him in (of course) a car chase on the highway that leads them into the ocean and luckily escape, by using Baymax’s inflatable power! They go to Fred’s house/mansion (as well as another fist pump joke by Baymax and Fred) and discuss about the events and what they think on who the Bad Guy really is. They think it’s Krei because of his offer with Hiro about his microbots, earlier, and decide to help Hiro stop him by creating a superhero team named “Big Hero 6”.
We get another montage of Hiro making new upgrades to Baymax with newer armor and scanners for his friends, training with their new gadgets and suits, as well as the song “Immortals” being played in the background. Once the training is finished, Hiro rides on Baymax with his new armor across San Fransokyo, like a roller-coaster ride. They land on a blimp and see the sunset or sunrise, before coming back down to Earth and bring the rest of our heroes to find the Villain and discover some forms of life on a mysterious island off of the ocean. They decide to inspect the island and go inside a dark laboratory and a room with a broken-up portal, as well as footage over who the Villain really is. The security footage shows footage, years before this story begins, that Krei once worked on this island and he created a portal as an experiment for the Government. However, the experiment went awry, when the portal went out of control and trapped the female pilot inside, which caused the Government to force Krei into shutting it down for good. Now, our heroes believe that Krei is the culprit and speaking of, the Villain arrives and attacks our heroes.
They try to attack the Villain, but to no avail, until Hiro tackles the Bad Guy and removes his mask and we finally realize that our heroes were idiotically wrong. It turns out that the real villain is actually Callaghan!!!:
Yes, Callaghan survived the fire and he used Hiro microbots to shield him from the inferno, while leaving Tadashi to die. Bet ya didn’t see that coming! 😉 Now, Hiro is enraged over Callaghan leaving his brother to get killed, so he takes away Baymax’s health chip that makes Baymax’s personality, and replaces it with his fighting chip. This causes Baymax to get violent and attempt to destroy everything, leaving Callaghan to escape and Honey Lemon to place Baymax’s health chip back inside you-know-who. Hiro’s anger grows when he blames his friends for letting Callaghan get away and flies away with Baymax to the garage to fix his scanning visor, that is now damaged. Baymax questions Hiro’s actions that if this is what Tadashi wanted and we get another really emotional scene that teaches Hiro to get over Tadashi’s death and that his brother is inside his heart and everybody’s heart and souls.:
Now, Hiro finally gets over his depression and apologizes to Baymax and his friends for carrying his anger out towards them and they accept his apology and vow to catch Callaghan correctly. Also, they just received new footage before being picked up by Fred’s butler that proves why Callaghan is the bad guy of the movie. It turns out that the female pilot during the experiment, Abigail, is actually Callaghan’s daughter and when the portal experiment malfunctioned, Abigail was trapped inside. Now, it’s up to our heroes to stop Callaghan from getting revenge on Krei because Callaghan reactivates the portal on top of Krei’s company with the microbots and traps Krei, while the portal sucks away the building. Our heroes confront him and Hiro tries to convince Callaghan to stop this madness once and for all, but he refuses to listen (of course) and we get one last battle between Callaghan and the Big Hero 6. However, they struggle to defeat the Villain, until Hiro has an idea on how to stop him. He decides to lure the microbots into the portal, so that they will be destroyed for good.
The plan works and Callaghan is no longer in control of the microbots, which gives Hiro and Baymax the perfect chance to destroy his mask and have our Villain and the microbots tumble to the ground. However, the portal is still unstable and it’s still on, but Baymax uses his scanner to discover that Abigail is still inside the portal, meaning that she’s still alive, but in a deep hyper-sleep. Now, it’s up to Baymax and Hiro to go inside the portal and rescue Abigail. As they make it inside the portal, they dodge various debris that the portal sucked in, until they spot Abigail’s pod and fly towards the portal opening to bring her back home. However, their chance is prevented when Baymax’s rocket boosters/thrust is damaged after hitting a giant piece of debris, meaning that Hiro will have to go back on his own with Baymax’s armor glove booster to blast them out, unless if he says “I Am Satisfied With My Care”. Hiro sadly agrees over Baymax’s sacrifice and Baymax sends him and Abigail back home, just in time, causing the portal to finally shut down. Abigail wakes up and is taken to the hospital by an ambulance, while the police arrest Callaghan, and the news about our heroes saving the day is brought into the News.:
When Hiro goes to the University, still sad over Baymax’s sacrifice, he discovers that Baymax somehow placed his health care chip for him, which gives him another idea. Hiro rebuilds Baymax, delighted to see him again, Hiro and his friends are now crime-fighters/superheroes, and they’re now going to fulfill Tadashi’s plan to help other people. Now, since this is a Marvel Superhero movie, I know what you’re thinking. WHERE THE CRAP IS STAN LEE?! Well, after we see the credits roll with the Big Hero 6 saving the day many times (meaning that the audience believes that it’s time to go home), we see a post-credits scene of Fred finally seeing his father again (played by no one other than the Marvel creator himself, Stan Lee)!:
And that was “Big Hero 6”. Despite some errors and lack of realism, I enjoyed it. The plot was good (even though the pacing was a bit slow), the animation was good as always (for Disney, that is), the characters are fair, the humor was amusing, the music was excellent, Baymax was an excellent and huggable version of Olaf, and the subplot involving Hiro getting over Tadashi’s death was a really interesting moral for a Disney movie. Most kids’ movies and TV shows would sometimes show the topic of the main character handling grief or depression either good or bad (like in the “MLP: FIM” episode, “Tanks for the Memories”), but in this movie, it was executed really well. Although, I do have to issues I want to point out, such as the lack of realism (including Abigail being under a hyper-sleep/coma, even though she would’ve died already) and various other plotholes, including the characters being sort-of morons. All in all, I really enjoyed this movie and I would recommend watching it, but if you’re more into “Frozen”, you may like it or not, or if  you’re not a superhero guy. It’s up to you.
Because of good this movie is, I’ll be rating it an 8.5/10. Also, I’d like to point that the main song of the movie, “Immortals”, is a really catchy song and I would recommend listening to it as well. Now, that it’s already behind me, I’m The Detective Librarian and now, if you’ll excuse me……It’s time to blast off with Baymax!! Toodles!
BAYMAX: Your ride is ready to go, Detective.
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Alright, Baymax! Let’s go! *Jet Blasting Off* WOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!……
-THE END-
-IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS WHO DIED DURING THE 9/11 ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001-
The Detective Librarian 