eddmurua

The animation is mediocre and ugly. The characters' personalities are unpleasant and annoying. The villains are annoying and boring. The story is boring and the melodrama is unbearable. A solid lump of trash or a chain of bad decisions. However you look at it, to me it was literally unwatchable-one of the few that felt that way in this very lightweight genre.

The only one even minimally recognizable in character is the always-angry Damian Wayne, who gets very little screen time. The rest of the heroes, in their "romantic comedy" mode, but less "Hollywood for young audiences" and more "fanfic made by amateurs".

Amid all the teen angst and romance, there's something related to The Judas Contract, which matters little, impacts little, pleases little, and improves the overall product little. Unwatchable.

Disney turns pain, loss, and moral growth into something so sanitized it loses all meaning. The movie's obsession with niceness-where every character except Hiro is impossibly cheerful, helpful, and understanding-makes the story feel completely fake, almost as artificial as Baymax himself, the robot built and programmed to heal and comfort. The film's take on grief is insultingly shallow, treating emotional pain like something that can be fixed with good intentions and a hug. The message might mean well, but it's so simplified that it ends up feeling empty.

And then comes the spectacle. For no coherent reason, a story about mental health and losing a loved one suddenly turns into a generic superhero flick, full of meaningless action and logic-free destruction. The group of self-proclaimed science nerds suddenly become fearless vigilantes, throwing themselves into danger without hesitation-a nonsense twist that only makes sense because the story's foundation never did.

And that shaky foundation lies in the world itself: San Fransokyo, an idealized San Francisco with some surface-level Japanese touches, hinting at cultural universalism but never daring to actually explore it. It's a city without logic, culture, or authority-no police, no government, no rules, no realism. Everything exists only to set up the next chase or explosion, erasing any sense of consequence or coherence. The result is the very definition of "spectacle over substance," a movie so hollow that maybe only little kids could truly enjoy it.

In many ways, this is a typical Hollywood drama production, but there are a few things that, in my view, lift it above the average. To start with, while some scenes may come across as manipulative, I think that overall the film tries to tell its story as truthfully and honestly as possible, rather than forcing the viewer's emotions the way more commercial dramas often do.

It also features some (and one in particular) absolutely devastating and masterfully executed scenes, where the anguish and pain of the characters are deeply felt-without relying on the usual tricks like a swelling soundtrack or overacting.

Finally, even while being so piercing in its portrayal of characters struggling with depression and/or guilt, it still manages to make you genuinely smile, with a wonderfully natural and human sense of humor-making the characters more believable, and their moments of deep anguish all the more striking and powerful.