Disney's first superhero-themed film is no more, no less, a rough diamond

Rating: 7/10 (22 October 2015)

A typical fanboy/hater behavior in review sites is to give 1s and 10s on a whim, although that's rarely fair, like in Big Hero 6, where that behavior became the norm in IMDb, while it's just a pretty good animated movie, that could undoubtedly be a lot better. The story revolves around Hiro Hamada, a young tech genius who wants to find the one that killed his older brother Tadashi, and all this with the help of the later one's college friends, and, most importantly, his recently completed science project, a cute medical assistant robot named Baymax, whose deadpan reaction to everything around him is simply hilarious. Disney is certainly not an expert in the superhero field. In fact the best superhero title of the company was actually developed by Pixar, and it was none other than the critically acclaimed The Incredibles, however, it's first tread into the genre resulted in something very good.
Now, while a great film, it's just not worthy of the golden medal. Why? For starters, while all its aspects are well-implemented, they seem to never fully embrace their potential. Case in point, the overall look of the movie. The animation is simply flawless, the character design is very good, the background extremely detailed, and so on, and yet, it's all forgettable; like the superhero costumes of the gang, which look great and all, but also far from iconic enough to go down in history. The same goes with the pacing. The first – and mostly comedic - 30 minutes are as fine-tuned as possible, with each scene seamlessly leading to the next, and with not a single millisecond thrown into waste. From there on, however, it's a bit of a letdown.
The film never gets bad or anything, but it could use some work – especially two out of the three available action segments, which look cool, but lack that extra something. The biggest strength of Big Hero 6, however, are its characters. For starters, Baymax is not just another obligatory cute-and-funny Disney sidekick, but the backbone of the plot, since, besides being a great tool for comedy, he also serves as the connection between Hiro and his dead brother, making sure that he is never forgotten throughout this adventure. Additionally, while Tadashi has been criticized by professionals as a "bland, hunky dude" that has a useless death scene, he is actually a genuinely kind and extremely likable character that serves as Hiro's father figure in a very good way, and whose death (let's get ready for some fanboy flame), is quite possibly more effective than the death of Mufasa, which, frankly, never left much of an impression to me.
Unfortunately, the theme of loss is not explored adequately here, and the same goes for the rest of the good stuff. Hiro's new friends are fantastic, and each one's personality trait adds much to the comedic aspect of the movie when they decide to appear on screen, that is, because this is mostly about Hiro and his inflatable buddy. In conclusion: if I were to describe Big Hero 6 in one sentence, I would say that it's more like a pilot episode of something much bigger than this. In many ways it is very similar to The Incredibles, and in some aspects (mostly the comedy), much better, however it feels incomplete, while Pixar's masterpiece does not. That isn't to say that it should be avoided, though, since the disappointment stems not from how bad it is, but from how much better it could be.