It's an above average animated film, and will be a lot of fun for anyone who is willing to overlook its flaws.

Rating: 7/10 (26 October 2014)

Judging animated films is significantly more difficult for me than other films because there is this inherent sense that animated films are made for children, as opposed to for adults. And that in reviewing animated films, standards should be different. Now while I do think that it does make sense for animated films to follow different criteria, I also think that at its core all films should have the same standards for quality based on some fundamental aspects of storytelling.
My problem with Big Hero 6 is that it does not push the genre in any new or novel direction, unless you count giving your characters Japanese names a step towards globalization. Which on a side note, is probably the only thing Japanese about them. Now this might seem a little unfair, but this revolutionizing quality does consistently happen even in the field of animation. For example, Japanese animation greats such as Hayao Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon have been able to imbue their films with wondrous worlds and impeccably novel plots. We also see this in American animation such as in the films of Pixar, like Wall-E or Up or the Toy story series, in that they create fascinating narratives and fill them with insanely memorable characters. Even within Disney's own canon, they've been able to make some pretty good animated films. I wasn't a big fan of Frozen, but it did side step the trope of the princess needing a happy ever after with a man, so that was something. And even without all the novel plots and characterization, some films work so well just on their simplicity, like the French animated film from 2012, Ernest et Celestine.
Instead, Big Hero 6 decides to be a cliché-filled franchise-potential-heavy superhero movie. Think: animated avengers but with teenagers and gadgets. Take the best and worst things about Disney and Marvel, and cram them into one movie, and that's Big Hero 6. While that does sound pretty cool when I say it like that, the plot does get exceedingly predictable and stale. To be fair though, Big Hero 6 does also do some things pretty well . The alternate world of San Fransokyo that the animators create in the film is really gorgeously animated, and so are all the other environments that Hiro and his gang explore throughout the film. Even the technology in the film, in Japanese fashion, is very meticulously designed and fun to see. And in terms of memorable characters, Hiro Hamada is a pretty distinct protagonist, in that he isn't like the normal passive character trope that is so common in animated films. I'm not that familiar with the original Big Hero 6 comic that this film was based on, so I'm not sure how much of Hiro's character was directly pulled from the comics, and how much was new for the film. The problem though is in the supporting cast, with every other character, especially the ones in Hiro's group, devoid of any characterization at all, apart from some silly nicknames.
But what truly elevates this movie from being just a decent one is the character of Baymax. And he really is one hell of a character. If you guys have seen the trailers, Baymax is the name of the fat white marshmallow like blob machine thing that acts as Hiro's main companion throughout the film. I don't want to spoil anything, but Baymax steals every single scene that he is in, and there are a lot of funny gags and sweet moments that center around his character, in a sort of similar way that Groot did in this year's Guardians of the Galaxy. Baymax has a couple of similarities to Groot, not only in his function in the film as a show-stopping side gag, but partly also in his role in the plot in the second half of the film.
So earlier, I said that I'm reviewing this movie in context of film in general. And in that sense, I do think there's a lot of wasted potential here. However, sometimes films work in ways that are independent of supposed objective criticism. Most of the time, we just watch movies to have fun, despite whatever overused clichés and predictable plots they may have. Sometimes those ARE the reasons we watch movies, because of that safe reassuring feeling that no matter what trouble may occur, everything's going to be fine. And sometimes that's enough in a movie.
So when you walk into Big Hero 6, know that it's not trying to revolutionize the field of animation, know of its flaws and redundancies and clichés, and then let go of it all. And just have fun with the movie. Sometimes it's when we stop being overly critical, that we are able to enjoy what's right in front of us. Just like kids do.