Big Hero 6 (2015)

In downtown San Fransokyo, 14-year-old Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) is making quite the name for himself — and a fair amount of pocket money — as an illicit robot fighter. Worried for his younger brother’s future, university student Tadashi (Daniel Henney) takes him along to the campus’ robotics laboratory to try and inspire him to put his talents to better use and perhaps even enroll himself. Before Hiro can register, however, a fire breaks out at an annual exhibition killing Tadashi. Hiro’s pain activates Baymax (Scott Adsit), a personal healthcare robot Tadashi was developing when he died, and the two bond over an investigation into the fire’s origins that Baymax believes will aid the healing process. Together with his brother’s old classmates — GoGo Tomago (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr), Honey Lemon (Génesis Rodríguez) and Fred (T J Miller) — Hiro and Baymax confront the man they believe to be responsible for Tadashi’s death.

The 54th film in the Disney Classics series, following 2013’s indomitable Frozen, Don Hall and Chris Williams’ Big Hero 6 is the first to draw from Marvel Comics’ extensive back catalogue, which the studio acquired in 2009. It is a loose adaptation of a relatively obscure title created by Steven T Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, with the film’s screenwriters severing ties with the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe (as well as Sony’s Spider-man and Fox’s X-Men) in order to focus on the relationship between a young boy and his late brother’s legacy. Disney and Marvel, however, make for awkward bedfellows; the first act is an overcomplicated mess of technobabble and schmaltz as the film tries to meet the demands of two very different audiences, one expecting traditional fairytale values while the other anticipates pixilated superhero spectacle. However, while Pixar can condense and concentrate a life-time of love and loss into a ten minute montage or serve up space-faring set pieces at a moment’s notice their parent company can’t help but make a meal of it.

Fortunately, once the introductions, motivations and machinations are out of the way the characters and relationships begin to speak for themselves. This change roughly coincides with the arrival of Baymax, at which point the pace, the tone and the energy of the piece all pick up considerably. In the space of a single scene Hiro has found a renewed purpose, the film has reconciled its competing codas and audiences have a new favourite robot. From the moment he squeaks onto screen, squeezing past Tadashi’s bed and knocking over all of his books, an icon is born. A cross between an airbag and an iPod, Baymax — who bears little resemblance to the Battle Dragon from the source material– is completely irresistible, proving a consistently amusing presence in his own right while simultaneously bringing out the best in everyone around him. Hiro’s exchanges with Baymax are hilarious, honest and heartfelt; the complete opposite of his trite altercations with Tadashi. Indeed, their best scenes together — in Hiro’s bedroom diagnosing puberty; reporting a preposterous crime to a skeptical police officer; returning home apparently drunk and disorderly — go some way towards compensating for their worst scenes apart.

And then, two acts too late, Big Hero 6 suddenly remembers that it’s supposed to be a superhero movie. Having already upgraded Baymax with Iron Man-esque technology, Hiro turns his attention to what had previously been little more than the supporting cast. GoGo Tomago, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred are all eye-catching and unique characters (though apparently from the Power Rangers school of colourisation), but given that they each constitute one sixth of the eponymous super-team they feel more like canon fodder than core members. That said, they’re undoubtedly impressive in action, helping to ensure that each set piece is imbued with as much spirit as it is spectacle — Jamie Chung and T J Miller in particularly making the most of every line of dialogue. Ultimately, however, this is Hiro’s story and Baymax’s movie, and inevitably it all comes back to them. The film has some surprisingly complex things to say about grief and maturity, and a number of twists and turns keep things interesting though the third act, but the appeal of their relationship is as much to do with flying really fast around the diverse and beautifully designed streets of San Fransokyo as it is about their capacity for foregrounding mental health and mortality.

A story of three halves, Disney’s latest struggles to define itself as either a family drama, a buddy comedy or a superhero origin story. By the time Baymax enters the fray and Hiro finally founds Big Hero 6 the film is already beset by structural issues that prevent it from ever really hitting its stride. It has its moments, undoubtedly, but in the end it’s neither an official Marvel film or a true Disney Classic.

Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

Despite attempting to distance himself from his violent past by becoming a private investigator, Dwight (Josh Brolin) is quickly corrupted by Ava (Eva Green), an old flame ostensibly seeking protection, and lured back into darkness. Years later, disorientated by a deadly car crash, Marv (Mickey Rourke) retraces the steps that have lead him into the hills surrounding Sin City, where two frat boys now lie dead. Down below, Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is on a winning streak at Kadie’s, but when he dares to beat Senator Roarke (Powers Booth) at poker his luck shows signs of running out. In the next room, through a hole in the wall, Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) is taking aim at the father of the man who once tried to kill her, but who instead took the life of the man she loved (Bruce Willis).

Not so much a sequel as a second anthology featuring interlocking stories set before, during and after the events of the previous film, Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For is often so incoherent that it is able to resurrect characters, recast actors and reprise stories almost at will, usually without anyone noticing. Clive Owen and Michael Clark Duncan are gone — though their characters return (nominally, at least, though it hardly matters if you don’t recognise them) — but Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis return, despite both of their characters being killed of last time around (the former by virtue of chronology and the latter as an overprotective ghost). Thanks to the nearly ten years between movies, however, you’ve probably forgotten.

Of the myriad new characters, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s gambler is perhaps the most memorable. Starting out as a winner in a city of losers (the closest the film ever comes to breaking the mould), the film delights in his unprecedented run of bad luck at the hands of returning villain Roarke. Also impressive, if only in passing, are Eva Green — an uncannily natural fit for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s world — and a near-unrecognisable Christopher Lloyd — who makes the most of a brief appearance as a low-budget surgeon-for-hire with a predilection for ice lollies. While Rourke’s Marv — by now officially the face of the franchise — keeps cropping up throughout, to rapidly diminishing effect, the supporting actors are reduced to mere cameos. Blink and you risk missing Juno Temple, Jeremy Piven and, er, Lady Gaga.

If Marv is the figurehead then Dwight is surely the dramatic lead. Unfortunately, Brolin — who replaces Owen — is nowhere near as compelling in the role.  A self-styled private investigator with unresolved and unrequited feelings for Ava, Brolin’s Dwight is the most Sin City character imaginable. He isn’t so much on a downward spiral of self-destruction as caught in a perpetual loop of it. Never the most charismatic screen presence, Brolin is here a crushing bore, and the main reason that the second act — where the majority of his story unfolds — is such a drag; he’s just another tortured schmuck in a city that’s full of them. Rosario Dawson returns as a friendly face, but the chemistry that once existed between the characters is in staggeringly short supply here. Their relationship is even less convincing than Alba and Willis’.

All in all, however, Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For is pretty much on a par with its predecessor. Even after nine years Miller’s visual style still looks remarkably fresh and inventive, and while the use of colour in this one might not be quite as striking it benefits from an impressive 3D conversion. Dramatically, though, the new film is just as inert: with its over-reliance on voice over, homogeneous characters and repetitive storylines, Sin City remains all style and no substance.

Premium Rush (2012)

Hired by his on-off girlfriend’s room-mate to deliver an envelope to Sister Chen in China Town by 7pm, bicycle messenger Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt — like the Coyote, he gets that a lot) punches the destination into his satnav and surreptitiously disappears into the throng of rush hour traffic. Unfortunately, he and Nima (Jamie Chung) are not the only people who know about the message, and soon Wilee is being hunted down by a bent cop (Michael Shannon) looking to intercept the message at any cost. As his evasive cycling attracts even more attention from the authorities, Wilee must patch things up with Venessa (Dania Ramirez) and call upon rival rider Manny (Wolé Parks) if he is going to make the fast-approaching deadline.

Sucker Punch (2011)

After an assassination attempt on her abusive step-father goes ambiguously wrong, Emily Browning’s pouty schoolgirl is carted off to Lennox House for the Mentally Insane for a swift lobotomy. With his inheretence resting on the death of his late wife’s two children, he balks at the absence of a qualified physician but nevertheless agrees to wait five days for his apparent fortune. Instructed by Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino) to dance for the good of her show, our hero is randomly transported to an oriental monestary where she is given a mission, a list of items and a katana, and required to slow-motion back-flip in order to take out a series of hulking computer graphics. Knowing that she must dance for the five objects on the list, the newly monikered Baby Doll recruits four friendly inmates (Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Venessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung) and imagines that she is stabbing dragons, demon Nazis and glass robots for apparently no reason whatsoever.

I forgive you for being enticed by the stylish and action-packed trailer, I was right there with you. It made the film look sleek, layered and, above all, coherent. A squad of asylum inmates escape into an alternate reality, Alice in Wonderland style, and must fight an array of fantastic monsters for a series of items that will lead to their freedom in the real world, sound about right? Turns out, however, that these items were little more than a map from the next room, a lighter from a visiting suit’s pocket, a kitchen knife from their workplace, a key from around their orderly’s neck and a not-so-mysterious “sacrifice”. Not a steampunked zombie Nazi in sight.

These dances then are simply a distraction, allowing for one of the other girls to pocket a trinket. Rather than see Baby Doll thrive about in a dreary dance studio, however, Snyder uses his creative licence to have Baby Doll thrive about in a series of ever so slightly more stimulating environments – seriously, what might have looked spectacular on YouTube looks ropey as Hell on the big screen. With the other girls busy watching or committing petty theft, it appears that the friendships built up on the battlefield are mere two dimensional figments of Baby Doll’s imagination. With Sweet Pea standing in the same room as the building schematics when the first dance/fight/Zack Snyder’s wet dream begins, the audience is forced to sit through an over edited and boringly repetitive flash of lights when all that is really happening is that a piece of paper is being removed from the wall. Riveting.

Aside from the despondency induced by barely legible action and gratuitous slow-motion, there appears to be little on offer except the bonkers sexual politics of an absolute madman. Rated 12A, it is genuinely shocking that Snyder’s explosion in the pixel factory was allowed to contain scenes of rape, grievous cranial harm and point-blank murder. I say contains – it’s true that such acts of violence occur offscreen – but the intent to harm is about as subtle as Brian Blessed.

Sucker Punch, then, is a snoringly dull succession of slow-motion gyrations that boasts all the maturity of a PVC whoopee-cushion. Handling it’s more adult content with exactly zero respect, the film gives as little thought to its dubious subtext as it does to its characters’ real names. Avoid.