Chris Williams is worth following for the warmth and comic precision of his animated adventures. Big Hero 6 gives us the clearest reason: a boy and an inflatable nurse whose company we prefer to the superhero business that follows.
Fi1m perspective
Baymax, the inflatable medical robot in Big Hero 6 (2014), cannot stop caring for the boy beside him. Don Hall and Chris Williams give that simple idea a funny, tender first hour, with the relationship clear enough to carry the film. We were moved by the robot's care for a grieving boy, because the humour leaves room for the sadness. It is the strongest reason we have to recommend Williams as a director.
He began in Disney's story department, working on Mulan (1998) and The Emperor's New Groove (2000). We cannot sensibly assign every good decision in those films to him. Mulan is lean and serious, with a moving father-daughter relationship; Mark Dindal's The Emperor's New Groove runs on jokes that mostly land. Its friendship lesson is much less convincing, an awkward requirement in a film otherwise happy to get on with making us laugh.
Bolt (2008), co-directed with Byron Howard, was his first feature directing credit. He went on to share directing duties with Hall on Big Hero 6, then co-directed Moana (2016). Action-adventure became his main territory, with character relationships meant to give the large set pieces something to depend on.
What we can judge is how the films hold together, and Big Hero 6 has a conspicuous join. Once the characters put on armour, the carefully judged boy-and-robot story becomes a familiar superhero origin, complete with a team and a masked villain. Hall and Williams do not make this material distinctive enough to match the first hour. We still recommend it, but the action gives us less to care about than the robot's efforts to help.
Williams left Disney in 2018 and wrote and directed The Sea Beast (2022), his first feature after leaving the studio. Its seafaring adventure continues his interest in large action sequences, with more responsibility for the storytelling under his own name. For a first encounter, choose Big Hero 6 and allow for the armour.
Biography
Chris Williams is an American-Canadian animation writer, director and voice actor. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in fine arts and completed the animation programme at Sheridan College before joining Walt Disney Animation Studios.
He contributed to the story department on Mulan (1998) and The Emperor's New Groove (2000), and worked as a story artist on Frozen (2013), in which he also voiced the character Oaken. Williams co-directed Bolt (2008) and Big Hero 6 (2014), the latter of which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and co-directed Moana (2016). He later wrote and directed The Sea Beast (2022) for Netflix Animation.
