What a Relief!

Rating: 9/10 (6 November 2014)

After a long period of major disappointment with animated movies such as How to Train Your Dragon 2 (watch the first one twice instead) and Frozen (Disney's most over-hyped - er, excuse me - popular movie ever...seriously?), we had hopes that this would not be another loser. We were far more than pleased, as it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience from beginning to end. It was packed with humor (very little of it of the bodily function variety for a change), heart and important life lessons for the younger audience. While I was stunned by the visuals of San Fransokyo and the attention to detail, my wife was equally impressed at how much expression and emotion could be extracted from Baymax - considering he has no mouth and not much in the way of eyes to register expression. There are some interesting - and I do not think for one second unintentional - parallels to the old Scooby Doo cartoons in terms of both plot and looks and behavior of a couple of the characters, but that's forgivable and I think will make the movie that much more accessible to those 40 and under. I won't go in to plot details; I'll just note that this should be a fun ride for any age - nothing to scare the little ones (one 2 second shot of a menacing dark figure in a Kabuki mask is the worst). We also think it was well worth it to see the film on the big screen. If you're into 3D have at it, but I doubt that it would add much to this film - and might actually detract from the beauty of the scenic backgrounds. Having endured the overlong train wreck that was Gone Girl (see our review) earlier this week, Big Hero 6 was a welcome and tremendously entertaining relief.