Big Hero 6 (8/10): Another Disney classic with memorable characters

“Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.”

I can’t avoid going into a Walt Disney Animation Studio film with high expectations considering they very rarely get it wrong, especially when John Lasseter is involved in the production. Big Hero 6 is their latest animated film, and this time they teamed up with Marvel so there was much more to get excited about. Big Hero 6 delivers everything it promised in the trailers: fun characters, stunning visuals, entertaining action scenes, and a lot of heart. Let me begin with the aspect of the film I found most fun: the characters. This is basically an origin superhero story about characters I had not heard about. They really don’t have special powers, but they are science enthusiasts who come up with great inventions. The lead character, Hiro Hamada, is all about making easy money as he destroys his opponents in robot battles, but when he meets his brother’s friends who are all working on cool science experiments he wants in. His brother has created a personal healthcare companion that looks more like a giant marshmallow than an actual robot. Its name is Baymax, and is by far the most endearing character in the film. Since it takes everything literally most of the comedy comes from it misinterpreting things (Marvel always has some character who behaves in this way) and the sweet way in which it reacts to different moments. It is the heart and soul of this film and the chemistry between it and Hiro is what elevates this film and makes it more endearing. Pretty much every character in this film has some sort of distinct personality and they all have their comedic moments. Big Hero 6 has its emotional moments as well as we deal with the death of one of the characters. It is standard at times and even predictable in the direction its heading, but it never ceases to entertain with a fun action-packed and comedic pacing. You have the superhero element on one hand and the touching relationship between Baymax and Hiro on the other. So there are several reasons why you can find it pleasing. It’s hard to avoid comparison with The Incredibles and I think it does live up to the same level of enjoyment we got from those memorable characters as well. 

So on the one hand you get plenty of action scenes because this is a superhero animated film where they face a mysterious villain, while on the other it remains emotionally engaging and touching with the center core relationship between this personal healthcare companion and Hiro. The film balances these moments extremely well and thanks to the memorable characters Big Hero 6 will surely become another classic from Disney Studios. I’ve focused my review on the narrative structure of the film, but I can’t leave out how good the visuals are here. The city where the action takes place is San Fransokyo, a combination of San Francisco and Tokyo. The architecture from both cities is combined here and makes for a gorgeous to look at futuristic city. I loved the way in which they blended these two styles together and the film looks amazing and culturally diverse. Add that to the charismatic characters and you have an instant classic. 

My Review: Premium Rush (5/10)

¨I like to ride. Fixed gear. No brakes. Can't stop. Don't want to, either.¨

I`m not a big fan of director, David Koepp`s work (Ghost Town, Secret Window), but I decided to give Premium Rush a chance considering Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon were staring in this film. Gordon-Levitt has had a great year with some interesting roles in The Dark Knight Rises and Looper, but here he doesn’t have a great script to work with. Michael Shannon on the other hand gave one of the best performances of 2011 in Take Shelter, a movie I really loved; but here I was really disappointed with his work. I didn’t like the way he portrayed his character as a corrupt cop one bit. The film has a lot of action and interesting bike scenes, but it never feels like it is taking itself too seriously. I don’t mind when film do this, but it wasn’t very funny either so it didn’t work in any level for me. I really was hoping Premium Rush would be a better movie, but Koepp has disappointed me once again. I give this film a 5 out of 10 because I thought some of the bicycle scenes were pretty exciting and Levitt still manages to be likeable. If you haven’t seen his other films this year then go see them instead of this one. I really can’t recommend this film to anyone. I thought it was just another forgettable light action flick, which is too bad because the trailer did make it look interesting.

Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works as a bike messenger in the dangerous streets of Manhattan. He has a sort of no fear mentality and rides his bike without breaks, taking his job seriously. He will do what it takes to deliver his packages on time, even if it means he has to put his life (or others) in danger. What begins like an ordinary day for Wilee when he`s asked to deliver a simple envelope ends up being a nightmare for him. A corrupt police detective named Bobby (Michael Shannon) wants to intercept the envelope before Wilee can make the delivery and thus follows him across the city. Wilee realizes that he`s not holding an ordinary package and decides to return it to the sender before he gets into more trouble. The sender happens to be Nima (Jamie Chung), Vanessa`s (Dania Ramirez) roommate, and Vanessa happens to be Wilee`s girlfriend. When Nima tells him how important it is that the envelope be delivered on time Wilee realizes he has to help her, but the package has already been picked up by another bike messenger,  Manny (Wole Parks). Thus the chase begins between Manny, Wilee, and Bobby across the heavily transited streets of NY.

The film has some fun action scenes as we see these experienced cyclists chasing each other across the city at high speeds, but the characters are really poorly developed and everything seems to be taken so lightly. The movie has some crazy editing going on as well as Wilee deliberates as to which direction he should take and we see the possible outcomes before he actually decides. Premium Rush is also narrated in non-linear fashion as we go back and forth in time to explain certain events. I´m not a big fan of chase scenes, and this film is one gigantic chase scene so that may be one of the reasons why I didn’t enjoy this movie as much. Cyclists might enjoy this film, but I found the script a bit cheesy and everything really over the top (like Michael Shannon`s performance). I couldn’t recommend this film.

  

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My Review: Sucker Punch (3/10)

¨ Who teaches us what`s real, and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live, and what we'll die to defend? Who trains us, and who holds the key to set us free? It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight! ¨

Zach Snyder has adapted various graphic novels into films in the past and I enjoyed his movies very much; I was a big fan of 300 and Watchmen and I thought those movies were terrific. In Sucker Punch Snyder tries something new; he wrote the story instead of adapting another novel, but still tried to give it the same feel and look his other films had. The look of the film is also stylish, full of CGI, and the graphics make us think we are playing a videogame instead of watching a movie. This style worked for me in the past because Snyder`s stories were interesting. In Sucker Punch I just couldn’t get into the story, I didn’t like any of the characters, and thought the plot was just ridiculous. The approach was also very hypocritical because the movie tries to preach about female empowerment and girl power, but the entire time the movie is targeted towards a male audience; we have girls fighting in short skirts, and the male characters have little screen time. I can see how this movie might be enjoyed by a young male audience, but it just didn’t work for me. Comparing it to 300 and Watchmen this movie doesn’t even come close, but even before watching Sucker Punch I had lowered my expectations with the trailer. I understood the metaphor and ideas the story was trying to get across, but it was just meaningless with these characters since they weren’t even developed at all. There was not one interesting character, they were all one dimensional. The screenplay was adapted by Snyder himself and Steve Shibuya, but the entire movie relies only on the CGI.

Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is sent to a mental asylum by her stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) after her mother dies and she accidently kills her little sister while trying to protect her from her abusive stepfather. She was aiming at him, but she missed and her little sister suffered the consequences. Baby Doll is institutionalized and in five days the doctor will perform a lobotomy on her so that she forgets everything her stepfather has done. Blue (Oscar Isaac) receives an important amount of money from the stepdad to make sure the doctor signs the ok for the lobotomy. Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino who also starred in Watchmen with Snyder) never signs the petition because Blue falsifies the signature and so everything is set for within five days when the Doctor (Jon Hamm) comes back. Baby Doll isn’t alone in the asylum. She befriends four other female companions: Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and her sister, Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung who was recently seen in The Hangover 2). Baby Doll decides to create an alternate reality in order to avoid her pain and guilt. In this fantastical world she becomes a sort of warrior and with the help of a Wise Man (Scott Glenn) she comes up with a plan to escape the mental facility. Along with her four friends they go on a mission to retrieve the five elements they will need in order to escape. In this fantastical world they have to face ninja robots, Nazi zombie`s and different kind of monsters. The lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur as they try to collect the items and break free from the asylum.

The characters are so poorly developed that I really didn’t care whether or not they escaped the institution. Even the fantasy clips in which all the main action and cool effects take place felt more like music videos due to the loud music and videogame style graphic. The movie is empty; simply eye candy and I couldn’t see anything philosophical or deep about it. I really was disappointed with this movie, but I know Zach Snyder will bounce back. He should stick to graphic novels. As for the performances there was nothing remarkable about any of them, but the cast isn’t to blame because the entire movie relied only on the special effects and not on trying to develop the characters. The effects are interesting at some times, but we`ve seen them all before and there is nothing new to Sucker Punch. This will definitely be on my list of worst films of the year; it was a huge disappointment for me. Everyone has the right to make a bad film; even Pixar came short with Cars 2 so I don’t think Zach Snyder should be worrying about how things turned out in Sucker Punch. Some young males might want to check this movie out, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

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