Big Hero 6 (2014)

4/5

Big Hero 6 is a wonderfully enjoyable animated film by Disney. Much of the film centers around the relationship between Hiro (Potter), a young technophile and "bot fighter," and his older brother Tadachi (Henney), an engineering student at a futuristic tech institute. Tadachi has created a health-focused robot called Baymax (Adsit), but Hiro is less than impressed at the huggable marshmallow of a machine. After a catastrophe at the institute's tech fair, Hiro must join up with a band of misfit superheroes to protect the city from a nefarious villain.

The same production company behind Frozen makes essentially its action-oriented counterpart, focusing on brotherly love in the context of a superhero world instead of a princess fairytale. It features similar themes and predictable plot points, but the repetition surprisingly does nothing to take away from the overall experience. Disney films are never really about shocking audiences with plot twists but about wowing them with stellar storytelling and magical details. Big Hero 6 delights--it's adorable, exciting, and fun--and is another big win for Disney.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2245084/

Premium Rush (2012)

1/5

Premium Rush is one of the most ridiculous movies I've seen recently. The story is not only ludicrous on its own merits, it is also told in an unnecessarily convoluted fashion. It goes backwards and forwards and every which way, with its only purpose seemingly to keep certain plot points hidden from the audience so that they can reveal it as a big surprise at the end. I have no problem with non-linear storytelling so long as it adds some sort of value instead of just existing for the sake of being different. The plot, as in all action movies, is pretty underwhelming: a guy rides a bike around NYC while being chased by cops in cars and on bikes. That's about it. There were way too many 1) chase scenes in which cyclists get terribly injured, 2) irrelevant side characters, and 3) not-so-subtle racial stereotypes. All in all, it's a pretty middling action flick with nary a redeeming factor and lots to dislike.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1547234/