Picoreview: Big Hero Six: well that was wonderful.
I cried about four times because I’m a big sap, so if you’re at all sappy, bring tissues. And whether you’re sappy or not, stay through the credits, because the post-credit sting was a zinger.
“I love San Fransokyo,” I said to Ted. “Well, you like San Francisco,” he said in a perfectly reasonable tone. Which is true. I do. But San Fransokyo was even cooler. THE WIND FARMS!!!
It is perhaps slightly unfortunate (in retrospect; I didn’t notice it while watching) that all the people in what one might regard as positions of authority were white, but of the main cast there was only one white dude out of six (well, seven if you count the robot). Everybody else was female and/or of color, and I’d just like to point out to the Frozen animators that somehow the poor darlings animating Big Hero Six managed to give the women both emotional ranges AND different faces. Just an observation from out here in the ranks.
I’m going to touch on a couple of not very spoilery but a little bit spoilery so if you don’t want spoilers at all don’t click through things that I *especially* liked behind the tag. :)
Before that, though, not slightly relevant to the actual movie, there was an incredibly attractive and well-dressed family right behind me at the theatre (he was in full regalia, I don’t even know the name or specific culture of the clothing style except it’s some form of gloriously colorful African formal wear, and she was in a blue skirt suit and AMAZINGLY HIGH HEELS and they had two very cute little girls and a baby), and the littler of the girls put her hand on my shoulder while we were sitting through the credits, and she said to me, “Can I tell you about that movie?” I said she could, and she did, and her older sister told me there would be MORE PARTS because it was a twenty-part story (? — are there 20 comics or graphic novels?) and I said I thought that was wonderful and she said she had “that song we heard first”, by which she meant the one that played first during the credits, on her iPad, and her mother had that sort of “oh god my child won’t stop talking to total strangers” expression that I frequently get myself, and as they were leaving she made sure the girls said goodbye to me and anyway, the movie could have been awful and I’d have been delighted with the post-film interaction, but the movie was also wonderful. :)
There were at least three–four!–points in the movie where Fred, the slacker-geek white dude character–who is inherently my least favourite character–clearly recognized the Comic Book Narrative they were partaking in and commented on them. He was still my least favourite of the Big Hero Six, but his AWARENESS was just great. It’s one of those “have these people NEVER SEEN A HORROR MOVIE?!” kinds of things, and he’s the character who obviously has. My favourite two were him saying, reverently, “This is our origin story!” and then later–no, dammit, the other one is too spoilery. But for those who’ve seen it, it’s his last comment about the narrative, and isn’t it just awesome? :)
The other thing I really, *really* loved were their power origins, in fact. I had no idea, going in, who or how these characters worked. I figured they were superheroes, but they’re gimmick-using superheroes, not inherently powered ones, and their powers are all geared toward their personal interests, skills and intelligences. I actually heard myself thinking BEST. SUPERHERO ORIGINS. EVER! as their gimmicks were developed. It was just wonderful.
I’m pretty confident there are a thousand things I’d like to mention that I’m currently forgetting, but this’ll do for a writeup, especially since I need to find something to eat. I’ll leave it at “I will totally go see that again!” :)