Baymax! Review: A heart-warming remedy for the wounded soul

There are many fond memories associated with Big Hero 6 (2014). The Walt Disney Animation Studios production, which came with a lot of layers, became a sweeping commercial success and won the 87th Academy Awards for the Best Animated Feature. Hiro and Tadashi Hamada, along with Fred, Go-Go, Wasabi and Honey Lemon went on to become the characters that etched a permanent place in the hearts of fans.   

Taking off from its predecessors Big Hero 6 and Big Hero 6: The series (2017-2021), Baymax!, the spinoff, focusses solely on the healthcare robot who does what he does best — helping others, just the way Tadashi wanted. He is the friendly neighbourhood healthcare companion whom everybody knows and is welcoming of. Spanning a maximum of ten minutes each, the six-episode series has familiar people dealing with unfamiliar situations. Interestingly, the standalone episodes are named after humans and not situations.

Directors: Dan Abraham, Mark Kennedy, Lissa Treiman, Dean Wellins

Cast: Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Maya Rudolph, Emily Kuroda, Lilimar, Zeno Robinson, Jaboukie Young-White

Streaming on: Disney+ Hotstar

If Baymax has learnt a thing or two from his previous escapades while meeting people from different walks of life, it is learning Gen Z lingo, understanding jokes and of course, having handy bandages, considering he’s a massive, cute inflatable balloon.

Despite the short duration, creator Don Hall has managed to squeeze in multiple hilarious scenes. The first episode in particular, is cracking. In the absence of laughs, there are moments of silence that speak volumes.

Remember the scene where Hiro Hamada in Big Hero 6 said, “Tadashi is dead” and Baymax kept uttering, “Tadashi is here” until Hiro saw the numerous trials during Baymax’s development? Filled with emotions, the interaction was enough to bawl our eyes out. In the spinoff, nothing has changed. Baymax offers seemingly simple one-line sentences as solutions and suprisingly, it works! These remind us time and again that the biggest of all problems have rather simple solutions.

Baymax is the medico on wheels, but he doesn’t stop there. He lends a supporting shoulder to humans reeling from ghosts of their past, struggling to step out of their comfort zones. Significant moments like the addition of an unisex bathroom in one episode, and unhesitant, candid conversations about menstruation and period products, make Baymax stand out distinctively. There are scenes in the fourth episode that were a misfit, an odd piece of the puzzle that did not land well, but the high that the others give subdue this minor roadblock.

Baymax joins the league of films where robots and machines which understand human emotions as seen in films like I, Robot (2004), Wall-E (2008), Her (2013), Chappie (2015) etc., Although he has that distinct voice of a machine, he knows when to give reassurances and how to comfort humans.

Will robots give up their innate tendencies and grow closer to humans as they advance in artificial intelligence, is still a question that is being researched extensively and is very complex to unpack. Citizens of San Fransokyo initially don’t consent to the scan that Baymax does, but the process is done, even before a choice is offered to them. I would love to see an upgrade for Baymax in future films where he presents his patients an option before performing a diagnosis.

Baymax! is a comforting hug-in-a-mug that rides high on emotions. At one place, he says, “It is never too late.” Perhaps it is never too late to remove the coats that define our ages and watch this series with a fresh pair of eyes, without any prejudices.