Big Hero 6 is awfully weaponized for a movie that’s ostensibly about mercy and caregiving. Drawn from the Marvel comics characters – and seemingly funded by a STEM grant to encourage kids toward science and engineering – this crisply animated feature tells the story of Hiro, a 14-year-old tech wunderkind who forms a relationship with a healthcare robot left in his care (the setting is “San Fransokyo” of the near future). Known as Baymax, the bot is a mushy, inflatable gentle giant, with a serene, calming voice (courtesy of Scott Adsit). The early scenes of the pair together are delightful, employing both silent film-style physical comedy and genuine affection. After tragedy strikes, Baymax becomes Hiro’s physical and emotional protector, yet Hiro – seeking revenge – isn’t satisfied with that sort of comfort. And so he reprograms Baymax to become a fighting machine, and gets his engineering friends to join him in a wannabe superhero cohort. The film tries to portray this as a crisis of conscience – should Hiro use Baymax as a weapon or a caregiver? – but the proof is in the pounding. We get battle scenes aplenty, with the cop-out that Baymax will remain noble as long as he’s used to apprehend – not kill – the villain. It reminded me of the “G.I. Joe” cartoon series of my youth: no matter what sort of war-mongering took place during the previous 18 minutes, as long as it ended with someone safely parachuting into the water after their plane exploded, the show could air at 3:30 p.m.
