I was fortunate enough to catch a free early screening of BH6 thanks to the Austin Film Festival, and it wasn’t spectacular, it wasn’t Frozen or Wreck-it Ralph, or the LEGO Movie or HTTYD 2, but it was decently entertaining and well worth waiting an hour and a half for in line.
The animation, specifically for the development of the environment and San Fransokyo, which was so exquisitely detailed. There were recognizable landscapes and landmarks of San Fran, but layered over with bits of old and new Japan. Lighting and water effects were gorgeous. Character design was varied and creative, which was a great improvement over Frozen’s dollfaced clones, but the actual personalities and abilities of the supporting cast were so superficial and glossed over, that it was clear they were designed purely to sell toys.
The plot was the weakest link. It’s the nice love-child of the engineering part of Iron Man and the zero to hero plot of Spider-Man. Any sort of surprise or tension or feels was removed (for me as an adult, I think the kids will be more surprised) since it so slavishly stuck to the standard superhero narrative that every damn plot point was predictable. It was done adequately, but there was so much potential for a Hans-level twist. It went through a checklist of dead parents, dead Uncle Ben, build the super stuff as a result, get the team, team training montage, control your anger, do good, find out identity of obvious bad guy. Really, no surprises and it was also very morally black & white instead of subverting tropes like the LEGO Movie, or doing something like Wreck-it Ralph breaking Vanellope’s car with good intentions. I didn’t emotionally connect very well to the characters because of this, and so it was fun but not excellently so.
Humor-wise, it was much weaker than the wittiness of Frozen, or Ralph, and ended up veering into silly and gross underwear territory. The after credits cameo is totally worth it, as well as the animated short “Feast” in front of it (about a dog’s life experienced through food and eating) and it is just ADORBS and feelsy and animated like Paperman.
Overall, it has some winsome charm, and potential, and there are some genuinely sweet and funny moments with Baymax the robot, but it lacks the sharpness, snark, originality, and feels of better Disney movies and HTTYD (Baymax has nothing on Toothless the dragon). It earns a B-, though if this manages to get kids interested in science and engineering (despite the complete lack of accuracy or lab safety in the film) then that’s the best sort of success this film can have.
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