Month: December 2023

As an older brother with an interest in simulation modeling, this movie resonated with me. The cinematic effects were deliciously satisfying to my eyes and storylines chewy enough for me to keep my focus on. From start to finish, I relished this movie.

Storyline

I felt guilty watching the older brother (Tadashi Hamada) giving love, faith, and empathy towards his younger brother (Hiro Hamada) in the movie. The backbone of the movie storyline is that Tadashi is a generous, well-rounded older brother, who cares about his younger brother. When (spoiler alert) Tadashi dies from an accident trying to save people, Hiro seeks revenge out of his love for his older brother. In the end, Hiro follows the path of Tadashi to help other people through the help of Baymax, a personal healthcare robot built by Tadashi. But I wasn’t and still am not an older brother who cares about his younger brother to that degree. I am often too absorbed in my own problems and don’t pay much attention to my younger brother. I find it difficult to tell whether it is realistically possible to become a brother who cares about his brother to the extent Tadashi does, I felt a newfound desire to become one someday.

Graphics

Released in 2015, the graphics are not short of my visual appetite. After having watched Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (2023) and Elemental (2023), I grew to enjoy good visual effects in movies (have you seen the water effects in Elemental? It is IMPRESSIVE). Notice the details of the backgrounds in each scene. The Japanese characters are carefully scribed in ornaments, sceneries of San Francisco, and even the scruffy-looking Hiro’s hair. Also, if you’ve been starving for some good mecha-suit actions since watching Ironman (2008), watching Armored Baymax flying through the city skyscrapers and landing with an Ironman pose will relieve you of your long-held angst.

Characters

If someone told me Go Go, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred, the friends of Tadashi in San Fransokyo Institute of Technology (an advanced engineering school in the movie), were based on real people’s personalities, I would’ve believed it. Go Go is a hard-boiled Asian girl who does not need anybody’s help and still excels in everything she achieves. Wasabi is an OCD-type of a sensitive and organized person. Honey Lemon is a sweet, nerdy, and emotionally bubbly European girl who loves experimenting. Fred is a laid-back, lackadaisical dude who flips ad-signs but turns out to be the son of a rich person. In graduate school, I feel I have seen these types of people at some point. Each character has a sense of empathy and the dynamic chemistry between them balances the serious tone and the brighter actions together.

Overall, I would say it is one of the few movies I would watch again. It’s still visually stunning, the storyline is tight, and the characters are fun to watch. It gives you a life lesson (be a good person, take care of your mental health, surround yourself with good friends) and motivates you to strive to become a better person. 5/5 I would recommend.

12.30.2023