Big Hero 6

So I saw Big Hero 6 and I liked it, but was kind of let down when it turned out to be just another superhero origin story. The movie initially focuses on Hiro Hamada, a young super-genius in the city of San Fransokyo, a futuristic mash up of San Francisco and Tokyo. After his brother dies Hiro teams up with Baymax, health- care robot that’s more parade balloon than Terminator, and tries to unravel the mystery. Eventually when a bad guy is discovered Hiro enlists several of his super-genius buddies to form the titular super team (because there are six of them, get it?).

As a San Francisco resident I really loved seeing my city transformed into a futuristic wonderland. The animation is amazing throughout, basically what we've come to expect from this animation team. I enjoyed the interactions between Hiro and his family as well as Baymax, and even the other team members, a crew of multicultural geniuses, had interesting foibles and characterizations. To me it’s sort of a shame that all these fun characters and interesting settings are jammed into the cookie-cutter superhero origin story plot mold.

I watch a lot of superhero movies so at this point in history I’m kind of over origin stories, because they all have the exactly same beats: Power discovery montage, disastrous first mission, training montage, showdown with the bad guy where everything comes together for the team, everyone poses somewhere cool and gives a Tom Joad-esque speech (Wherever there’s trouble, I’ll be there). I've seen it like a thousand times. It's especially rough for a movie like this, clearly aimed at kids, at the end I almost felt like I’d just seen an hour long first episode of a new Saturday morning cartoon show, instead of a self-contained movie.

It’s frustrating because there is a lot to like about this movie that isn't just the same old stuff. I definitely want to  to say that on the familiar trappings of the origin story the filmmakers have managed to make a fun and charming movie that has some truly exhilarating and touching moments, it's just a sore spot for me. Plus this movie does have that family stuff that I like so much. Not a perfect movie, but absolutely worth checking out on the big screen if you can.