How to Train Your Robot

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2015)

An animated feature by Walt Disney Studios, "Big Hero 6" revolves around 14 year old Hiro Hamada, a vaguely Japanese robotics prodigy whose inventions are stolen by a mysterious masked man. With the help of a medical robot called Baymax, Hiro attempts to solve this crime. Assisting him are a band of super-scientists, each armed with high-tech gizmos.
Wholly derivative, "Big Hero 6" plays like an amalgamation of every animated feature released over the past ten years. Almost every character is a wisecracking, manically animated attempt at "cool", family members die on cue, villains are predictably revealed and the film's last act rolls out the usual heroic sacrifices and false deaths. Throw in obligatory "flying sequences", "musical montages", "canned sentimentality", generic "action sequences" and several moments done better in other recent animated features ("Megamind", "Summer Wars", "Iron Giant", "The Incredibles" etc), and you have a film almost entirely devoid of imagination.
Computer animated features allow for a level of hyper-control almost impossible in conventional films. Every ray of light, every colour, every camera movement, can be fine tuned with machine precision. Despite this, the virtual choreography of "Big Hero 6" is mostly unimpressive. The film's aesthetic – manic, overly busy, graceless, no scene allowed to breathe – is itself annoying; like listening to a sugar-addicted 5 year old yell for 90 minutes. Like most recent animated films, "Big Hero 6" struggles to be both action adventure and anti-violence sermon. It contains one neat bit of conceptual design: a marshmallow-shaped inflatable robot.
6/10 - Better recent animated films: Chomet's "The Illusionist", Hosoda's "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", "Summer Wars", "The Secret World of Arrietty", Oshii's "The Sky Crawlers", "From Up on Poppy Hill" and Yeon Sang-ho's "The King of Pigs". Worth one viewing.