Baymax

Well that passed by in the blink of an eye.

I was perusing my several watchlists for material this week and decided what the heck, let's keep doing some series. I am always down for Big Hero 6 and even more so Baymax so I couldn't resist watching this but blimey is it short. 6 episodes with each clocking in around 7 minutes, it's good old fashioned Looney Tunes type of shorts and why would you wanna watch some trite reality TV when you can watch this whole show in about 45 minutes? It's a simple story with Baymax doing his programming and aiding several residents of San Fransokyo whether helping an angel sent from above who we call Aunt Cass with a sprained ankle, standing side by side with a lady who has a fear of water named Kiko, reassuring and aiding a young girl who just had her first period named Sofia, and helping a food truck owner with a severe allergy to the food he makes named Mbita. All the pieces fit together in the finale in the most heartwarming fashion possible, and it is just a sweet bit of fluff but a super well made one at that. The animation quality I dare say is even better than Big Hero 6, the architecture and colors are really dang nice, voice acting is still solid, and it is just so frick fraking funny! I had several sustained bouts of laughter throughout this short series, it's such an endearing show that has that Rilakkuma And Kaoru vibe about it. Again I hardcore relate to Baymax here, I am a round giant that tries to look after people any way I can and good lord I think the showrunners were calling me out when it came to Baymax following a cat! I'm not sure what the future holds for this series and these characters but I feel it's been a sleeper hit for Disney so it'll never truly be gone. I did expect a longer runtime admittedly but what I got was short and sweet, just how I like my wom-I'm sorry I can't do this guys. Goodnight everybody! 4 stars, 9/10! And we got a little documentary coming up later this week about a special effects company who you might have heard of. Until then, be safe and stay well.

Strange World

Good for you Disney, doing something different.

Needless to say the trailer for this pretty much sold me, a fantastical world with many strange, strange creatures. Let's go. So what did I think? It certainly deserves better than a 5/10 on IMDB, but I do have slight issues with it. So our story takes place on the town/continent/planet(?) of Avalonia where a group of farmers are recruited to travel to the center of the earth to seek out the quite literal root of their problem as their energy sources are depleting. Not super radical in terms of story but for Disney it is new ground. I like our main leads, you do feel the family dynamic and I'll admit the relationship between Searcher and Meridian was really dang sweet. Hell props to them for giving a quite cute blooming romance between two guys, if only for a brief moment. However! I have never seen a script so embroiled in a tug of war in my life. Because the plot focuses as much on generation gaps as much as this wonderful world, and at certain points I'm like, oh wow movie you're not going for some tropey cliches of bickering family members and them totally not opening up their emotions. We get some solid open hearted conversations that I feel are good discussions.....and then they ruin it. It's like every step the characters take forward which happens fairly often, every single time is pulled right the hell away and they regress ten steps back. So why should I believe anything they say and get invested when they turn their backs almost immediately on what they just said! It's so aggravating man. Now the character designs are fine, the environments are nothing short of fascinating and amazing to see, the creatures are so imaginative, and yeah the movie throws a curveball that I never suspected even though I was calling out elements of it early on unknowingly. So the visuals once again are the strongest point of the film, which is not good because they were soooo close to getting this dialogue and characterization down but just fumble it bad. And you spend the entire film with these people and their emotional problems to fix, so it hurts the score. Visuals, excellent crossing over into art at points. Story, basic but interesting. Characters, infuriating but have their good moments. Do I recommend it? Ah, it depends on the individual. This isn't new heights for Disney but it's decent and has a good message about environments and how planets themselves are lifeforms. So....I give it 2.5 stars, 7/10, and tomorrow we really diveboard into the bizarre and you'll be surprised what it is. Keeping you guessing for almost 8 years, I'm proud of that.

Big Hero 6

Yeah it only took me 4 years to finally see this movie.

And you know what sucks? I was all for seeing it, and I didn't know a thing about the movie. Didn't see a trailer, didn't see one bit of promotional material besides a poster. So what took so long? No idea. Life perhaps. But after finally seeing it in it's entirety how was it? Pretty outstanding to be honest. Sure the film is very comic book-y but since it was adapted from a manga it makes sense. Hiro Hamada lives in the quite frankly beautiful and amazing city of San Fransokyo (though I always just call it San Fran-Tokyo) in the year 2032. Hiro is a boy genius and is tempted to join his older brother's science institute but after a fire and the loss of his brother, Hiro for lack of better words falls into a depression until he meets a medical robot developed by his brother named Baymax who soon uncover a mysterious villain who caused the fire claiming his brother's life, leading Hiro and Baymax to become super heroes with the help of his friends. Told you it was comic book-y, they even refer to it as an origin story! Where to begin with the positives? Well the city is gorgeous, taking the best examples of art and architecture from San Francisco and Tokyo and melding it perfectly, though I see more Japanese influence but hey brownie points for that guys. The characters are all really dang good, Hiro and his friends are all fleshed out and given personalities though honestly evennthough they are self proclaimed nerds, they are highschool stereotypes. Jock, cheerleader, punk, geek, and your normal kid but that doesn't take anything from their character, all the voice actors give a lot to their parts and make it their own. My personal favorites being Baymax, Honey Lemon, and Aunt Cass, dear sweet Christmas they bring me such joy! And while the story is kinda been done, the variety of location and characters make it feel fresh and original. The movie is fun and wonderful from beginning to end, and if you ever wanted to know what I look like look no further than Baymax. It is almost too close, just subtract the karate and medical knowledge and bam, you got me! It's a great movie, but we got 3 more movies better than this, so join me tomorrow where we look at the acclaimed WALL-E.