Big Hero 6 - Analysis and Review

Balalala la 

That'll make more sense if you saw the movie.

The Plot

When boy genius Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) loses his brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) in a fire, he discovers that the fire may have been caused by someone who stole his technology. With the help of his brother's greatest invention, a caretaker robot called Baymax, and Tadashi's classmates (Jamie Chung, Genesis Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr. and T.J. Miller) from an esteemed university, they all band together to stop this mysterious foe.

Analysis

This movie is not accurate to the comic book it is based on. Then again it is an obscure comic book in Marvel's plethora of properties. For all intents and purposes, this was meant to be the most anime inspired comic of the Marvel line. The artwork is very reminiscent to the manga art style and even draws from anime archetypes. The mecha, the boy genius, the samurai, the giant monster, the magical girl, and the tech suit hero. All of them are there. Yet for the film, they have been drastically changed.

Hiro, the boy genius, is pretty much the one who seems to remain in tact for the most part. Except he's not a snobbish kid, and he's not fat. Baymax is a mecha who can turn into a dragon with Hiro's dead father's mind acting as its's brain. However in the movie Baymax is a helper bot created by Hiro's brother. Honey Lemon is a sexy secret agent take on sailor moon who acts like a dumb blonde in order to hide the fact that she's the smartest woman in Japan. In the movie, she's a really geeky conservatively dressed girl who loves pink and chemicals. Wasabi is a samurai who can focus his chi (his soul) into creating energy katanas. In the movie, he's an organized OCD guy with a speciality in creating plasma technology. Gogo is an ex convict who was released under the condition that she uses her powers for good. In the movie, she's the tomboy no nonsense adrenaline junkie of the group. And Fred? Well, in the comics he is the descendant of the original inhabitants of Japan who can turn into giant monsters. In the movie? Fred is just a big comic book and kaiju fan who wears a modified monster suit.

So yes, very different. Yet I don't hear people complaining about this. Why? Because it is not a well known property. This allows the creators to take these characters and do whatever they want with them. They made all the characters science based and diversified their ethnicities. While it is the politically correct thing to do with giving them different ethnicities, it does kind of bug me that all of them are suppose to be Japanese. I admire the fact they kept Hiro and Tadashi Japanese, and possibly Gogo too. But what made this team special was them being Japan's only group of superheroes in the Marvel Universe. It would've been great to have all of them still be Japanese, but since no one will really care, it is completely fine. After all, what matters is if the movie is good and not how accurate it is to the source. So is it worthy of the name Big Hero 6?

Review

This movie is definitely one of the best animated movies of the year. A hell of a lot better than that trash called The Book of Life. This is what I look for in an animated film. It offers up adult themes and presents them to children in a way that they would understand. Themes such as dealing with loss of a loved one and learning to cope. While it is a theme that is often explored in animated movies, it is alway a welcoming one when the filmmakers don't hold back on what is going on and don't sugar coat it. And while that is definitely the underlying theme of the movie, there is another that is a lot more prominent. The idea that science and education is cool.

Another reviewer pointed out that science is usually portrayed as an antagonistic force in superhero stories. It is always the Mad Scientist who is the villain, and rarely are the heroes scientists. Sure, there is Iron Man, The Hulk, and The Atom, but there are more science villains than science heroes in both Marvel and DC. So it is really refreshing to have our heroes use science as a means to save the world. Sure, it seemed to have beat the message over the head by having the main character, Hiro, take a tour around the university to see the amazing things the other characters are working on, but it definitely would've convinced me to want to enroll. It is a nice way of saying that education is important, as well as showing just how amazing science can be with everything that can be done now.  And it really helps that it has great characters to make science cool.

Hiro, voiced by Ryan Potter, may be the stereotypical tech boy genius who has no drive, but it works so well in this film. Tadashi, voiced by Daniel Henney, is the catalyst of the film who helps Hiro finds his purpose by showing him the potential of what he can become if he had the education and the resources to do so. And while it is morbid that Hiro becomes a lot more relatable after the passing of his brother, he is still relatable from the beginning as a kid who feels he's got everything figured out. We've all felt like we know everything we need to know and nothing else, but the truth of the matter is we don't know everything and we never will. But trying to learn everything is part of what makes life interesting. And that is shown well through Hiro.

But obviously, the standout of this movie is Baymax. The lovable marshmallow robot that was created to help people is one of the many bright spots of the film. He is naive enough to be lovable, but not so much that we would think he's dumb. Because in the end, he's meant to be a symbol of Hiro's brother. He's everything that Tadashi strived for by using science in order to help make a better world. While I'm sure Tadashi never intended Baymax to be customized into a fighting robot superhero, it is still clear that his message and what Bayamax represent resonates with Hiro. He is the very representation of what science can do to change the world, as well as help Hiro cope with the loss of his brother. It is a nice combination in a movie that is promoting the themes of dealing with loss and the amazement of science.

And the visuals of this movie are amazing. They're not as good as Rise of the Guardians or How to Train Your Dragon, but for a Disney Animated film that's not Pixar, they are definitely top notch. The world of San Fransokyo is vibrant and colorful while also being neo noir at night. And the action scenes are spectacular. Which they have to be if this movie is going to be a superhero movie. A city and incredible set pieces are just two of the staples of superhero stories, and this film excels in them. But that doesn't mean there aren't any weaknesses.

The supporting cast of Gogo Tomago (Jamie Chung), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), Fred (T.J. Miller) and Wasabi (Damon Wayans) were excellent with their one dimensional characters. And that is a major compliment in that their respective voice actors were able to make them feel alive, despite the fact they don't really develop. And they agreed to becoming superheroes a little too willingly. Then there is also the villain of the movie, which the filmmakers attempted to have a nice parallel with Hiro's character in terms of losing someone but going over to the dark side because of it. This could've been handled better, but it definitely was handled competently enough to where it does work.

Those may seem like big problems, but in the end they really aren't. Because the main focus of this movie is not on the ensemble, but rather Hiro's relationship with Tadashi which continues through Baymax. It is the story about a boy and his robot, who just happen to also wind up saving the city.

Final Thoughts

If you have kids and want them to be interested in science, please take them to this movie. It is a heartwarming film that has a great message all wrapped around a superhero adventure. It is not the best animated film of the year, but it is definitely one of them. There is so much to love about this movie and how much of an influence it can have on the younger generation. Science can definitely change the world, and can possibly save it. This is for the kids, while Interstellar is for the adults in terms of promoting the need for science. For comic book fans, it may not be accurate, but it is a damn good movie.

SCORE: 8.5/10 - A nice animated film that disguises "education is cool" in a superhero movie

The Book of Life - Analysis and Review

Color me...confused

About 1/3 into the movie, I was asking myself this question: Why does this movie have a 79% certified fresh critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes?

The Plot

Two deities, voiced by Kate Del Castillo and Ron Perlman, make a wager involving two young men, voiced by Diego Luna and Channing Tatum, on which one of them will marry their childhood crush, voiced by Zoe Saldana. The stakes? The kingdoms of the dead.

Analysis

Theatrically released kids movies, pretty much have a standard. That standard is, can adults find some form of enjoyment too? That standard for American cartoons was created by Walt Disney. His animated films contain heavy amounts of depth that didn't shy away from dark things, but was able to balance it well by sugarcoating the product into something kids can enjoy. Then Pixar took it a step further by having the notion that they make adult animated films that kids can enjoy and then fully understand once they grow up. Dreamworks accomplished this early on by being a little bit too adult, but eventually found the right balance once Guillermo Del Toro joined the group to oversee projects like Kung Fu Panda, Puss in Boots, and How to Train Your Dragon. 

That is what separates American animation from the highly popular Japanese anime. Good american animation hides mature themes with visual splendor and incredible storytelling. Japanese anime does this too, depending on what type of genre they're dealing with. If anything, the one Japanese studio that has mastered, and outclasses, this American form of animation is probably Studio Ghibli. Their films are just as whimsical as any Pixar or new age Dreamworks film, yet they don't hide being mature. Rather, they have it in the right places and utilize them in the right ways. Because in the end, incredible storytelling is what counts.

That's not what I saw here.

Review

This movie is boring. Plain and simple. It is really boring. Which given all the talent behind this film, I'm astonished. But then again part of me should be surprised. 

Guillermo Del Toro is one of my favorite directors, and has made one of my all time favorite comic book movies in Hellboy, but he attaches his name to a lot of things. And most of the time, just because his name is attached to it, does not mean it is good. It's a lesson that I should've learned whenever I saw the "Produced by Steven Spielberg" title card appear in the Transformers films, but perhaps I kept thinking because it is Del Toro, it might be different. I know that he wants to bring awareness of Mexican Culture to the states in a colorful way, and this project by animation director Jorge Gutierrez would've definitely been the best way to do so. If only the movie wasn't so... cliche.

Now, I like a lot of cliche movies. Just look at my reviews for Dracula Untold and Hercules. Both are really predictable and filled with cliches that are used only somewhat effectively. But while they are pretty bad movies, they are pretty damn good entertaining movies. This isn't. Now that sounds like a bad comparison because this is a kids film. But from my analysis section, you can pretty much pick up why I'm going to say this is a bad film: There is no subtlety or depth.

The characters, Manolo (Diego Luna), Joaquin (Channing Tatum) and Maria (Zoe Saldana) are extremely cliche. By extreme I mean you can predict already who is going to do what and even what a character is going to say. While each of them are distinct, they're more like caricatures of the cliches they are. Manolo is the dreamer, Joaquin is the macho hero and Maria is an independent woman who loves books. If you know the cliches of those characters, now think about what lines those cliches usually say and you'll be surprised when they say all the lines you predicted they'll say. While it's okay to have stock characters say cliche things, there at least has to be a lot more creativity with how they're said or even a few tweaks to the stock characters. Not only that, the supporting cast was extremely cliche. And you can probably predict what they're going to say as well and be right. This automatically kills any sense of character depth because it makes them all feel like they're picked up from a toy box. In fact, the frame story is they come from a toy box. But Toy Story did not feel this cliche and predictable. And they had way more personality than these puppets.

And the story. My god the story was just not paced well at all. Some portions of this movie was dedicated to having it being told as a story to detention students by a sexy museum tour guide. And yes, it is made clear that she is sexy from how all the male character act around her. Then nearly 20 minutes of the movie is spent with the characters as children, which was highly unnecessary when it could've been summed up in just one to five minutes. Then almost 45 minutes of the movie is dedicated to the adult main characters as they childishly fight over Maria. Which honestly should've just been the first 20 minutes of the movie. Then when the interesting part that takes place in the two Underworlds happen, it is only the last remaining 20 minutes of the movie. That portion should've been the entire run time of the movie. The trailers make it seem like an hour of the movie will take place in the Land of the Remembered and the Land of the Forgotten, but nope, it just sped right through. This is mainly because it was trying to be epic by telling the story over decades when it really just needed to be told when Maria becomes a woman and the two guys are fighting over her. To put it simply, if you saw the trailer for the movie, you've seen the whole movie, and the trailer was better.

And what I'm flabbergasted by the most is the critical acclaim for this film. Most of the acclaim has the excuse that "the visuals are spectacular, even the story was so-so." In my opinion Sucker Punch had spectacular visuals and the story was so-so. Yet you don't see me giving that movie a positive rating, and I love Zack Snyder too. As far as the visuals go, this movie was not even anywhere remotely visually interesting. Yes, it does get interesting to look at once the character dies and goes to the Underworlds, but the movie doesn't spend too much time there. Instead it spends more time in the boring living world where boring dialogue just makes everything in this movie boring. And while the visuals of the Underworld was definitely something, it was not spectacular. A still image makes it spectacular, but in motion it is pretty bland. Compare the visual excitement of Rise of the Guardians' Santa's workshop to the "visual excitement" of the Land of the Remembered in this film and you'll notice that one is a million times superior to the other. 

There are some good things I should say though. Zoe Saldana is great and her voice is charming as the overtly cliched "I don't need a man" Maria. But Ron Perlman as the film's antagonist Xibalba was surprising for me. He nailed the Spanish accent and spoke with a cadence that made his voice unrecognizable for me. So that was a big surprise. But other than that, this movie was too short to have any depth yet felt like it was 3 hours long because of the boring characters and odd pacing.

Final Thoughts

If none of that made any sense then I'll just put it as this. It is a kids movie in the sense that only a child below the age of six will enjoy this movie. Meaning it is the type of movie you'd find as a straight to dvd release rather than a big theatrical one. Theatrical animated movies are indeed targeted for children, but the best animated movies are the ones made for adults yet children are capable of understanding them too. This movie fails in delivering a nice representation of Mexican Culture and as an animated kids movie. The feeling I had watching this movie was the same exact feeling I had watching Transformers: Age of Extinction. The only saving grace is that this movie was shorter, yet it still felt as long as Age of Extinction. Don't believe the critic ratings because this movie is trash. If you have a child though, this movie is definitely for them... but as a rental not a theater experience.

SCORE: 2/10 - Those two points are for Zoe Saldana and Ron Perlman's voice acting.

The LEGO Movie - Analysis and Review

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME! 

Once this movie is over, that song will be playing over and over in your head.

The Plot

A seemingly ordinary construction worker mini-figure (LEGO person voiced by Chris Pratt) discovers that he just might be, "The Special," the one destined to save the Lego World from the evil Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferell). He will need the help of a powerful rebel (Elizabeth Banks), a wise hippie wizard (Morgan Freeman), an iconic superhero (Will Arnett), a magical cat (Alison Brie), a gigantic pirate (Nick Offerman), and a 1980s something space guy (Charlie Day) to take on the terrible power that Lord Business plans to unleash!

Analysis

If there is one thing that directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord excel at, it is the theme of "the absurd and the heart." What I mean by that is they have pretty much done films that borderline the absurd comedies during the era of Airplane and Top Secret! There have been many films that try to do the absurd reality comedy route these days but always seem to lose sight of what it is that made those comedies work: the heart.

This is what makes their comedy style so distinctive because they are able to have these absurd characters in these absurd realities yet not lose sight of what message they are trying to convey. And that message can be a simple one like brotherhood in 21 and 22 Jump Street to believing in one's self in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. While very simplistic in message, they are powerful if handled correctly. Especially with an absurd concept of food raining from the sky or an extreme satire of the reboot/remake craze that has been going on, it is important to always find simplicity to keeps the audience locked into the absurdity.

And The Lego Movie is even more absurd than anything that Lord and Miller have done, and I am counting their animated show Clone High. But like I said, they know where the heart of this story is and again it is simple. Which works well in what the film really is about.

Review

There are so many things that can go wrong with this movie and so many misinterpretation of what is this movie's purpose is. First, this movie can be seen as one big gigantic toy commercial (which in all out honesty let's face it, it is) that could easily be grouped with the likes of Michael Bay's Transformers or the G.I. Joe films. Also it sounds and looks like a silly kids film. The same thing can be said about Lord and Miller's other movies. Yet by some miracle, this "big gigantic toy commercial" is also a genuine movie!

Lord and Miller have crafted a story that definitely speaks to many generations, especially those who grew up playing with legos. They acknowledge the two kinds of people who buy legos: the creative builders and the instruction based builders. It is this acknowledgement of those who follow the instructions and those who revel in imagination is what proves to be a powerful essential theme of the film. The idea of revolving the movie around that dynamic alone is what makes this movie so brilliant. Not only do they have a product to convey large concepts, but the product is so heavily based in those large concepts without people realizing it. Though while it may be a large concept of creativity versus conformity it is a fairly simple concept that does not hurt the film for being to simple but empowers it.

The voice casting in this film is top notch. 2014 just might be the year of the Pratt because Chris Pratt is gaining huge momentum in Hollywood as of late. If this is the first film to define his career this year then it is a fine edition. He does so well as the lovable yet gullible hero, Emmett, who is so concerned about pleasing everyone that you really feel for the guy when he realizes that maybe he tries to please too much without thinking about what's best for him. Then there's Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle the rebellious "Master Builder" who displays a powerful front that hides an insecurity that Banks is able to convey so well just through vocal performance. Then of course you have Morgan Freeman playing the wise wizard Vitruvius who makes fun of the fact that he is always playing these wise characters as well as pokes fun of his iconic voice. Will Ferell does well as the evil President Lord Business but there is more to his performance that really makes him a standout in the film. Too bad I can't say what it is, but when you see it, you will know what I mean.

Will Arnett as Batman is hilarious, Alison Brie as Uni-Kitty is adorable, and Charlie Day as Benny the Space guy was just laugh out loud hilarious but the standout here has to be Liam Neeson as Bad Cop/Good Cop. That's right, Liam Neeson is in this movie with Morgan Freeman. And Liam Neeson finally shows a side that we don't often associate with him: a very high pitched almost squeaky voice as Good Cop. Of course his iconic gravelly voice is used for Bad Cop, but his ability to switch back and forth between the two characters is incredible and unbelievable that this is coming from Liam Neeson.

The animation in this film is gorgeous. The painstaking detail it took to ensure that everything in this film is created by existing lego pieces (except the ones used for original characters) is tremendous! Yes the film is CGI but it is the same CGI program used design the models for the actual toy company that was then transferred to Australian animation company, Animal Logic, to use as a tool for cinematic greatness. It is animated to be like a stop motion film and there is indeed some portions where it is animated in the classic "Brick Film" way, but the fact that it is dominantly CGI does not take away from it feeling real.

Final Thoughts

This is truly one of the smartest animated films to have come out in a long time. It is relentlessly funny. So relentless that you'll have to see it a couple of time to see all the jokes you might've missed the first time. It is truly a family film and a smart one that doesn't need to dumb things down for the kids to understand. This is definitely one of the best animated movies of the year so far.

SCORE: 9.7/10 - Relentless and heartwarming all at the same time