"Big Hero 6" is a bigger deal than you might think.

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2015)

What IS "Big Hero 6" anyway? Yeah, I know that it's an animated film from Disney and it was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' choice for Best Animated Feature of 2014, but what does "Big Hero 6" MEAN? To what does it refer? I didn't know until I saw the movie – and read up on the film and its background (my usual post-viewing and pre-review writing research) and now I understand. But there's more at stake here for the movie than whether its title confused a formerly ignorant movie fan or two. This film has to live up to its Oscar win! Does the movie deserve the award? Does the basis for the title become clear during the film? Does this reviewer ever tell the readers about the movie? Read on and find out! Does "Big Hero 6" refer to the giant marshmallow-looking robot that is featured on the movie poster and in its theatrical trailers? No, it doesn't.
That robot is called Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit) and is the creation of a very talented college student inventor named Tadashi (Daniel Henney). Tadashi created Baymax as a health care provider. Baymax can assess your physical and emotional health in an instant with a pain-free body scan and give you the help you need. And Tadashi designed Baymax's look to make him more effective, or, as Tadashi puts it, "non-threatening and huggable".
So is "Big Hero 6" a reference to the President's Affordable Care Act?? No.
Baymax is completely apolitical – and he actually works. Besides, he doesn't go away until he hears you say, "I am satisfied with my care." How many people have said that about Obamacare? But that's how 14-year-old Hiro (Ryan Potter) meets Baymax. Tadashi takes his brother Hiro to his college's inventors' lab in hopes of inspiring the brilliant and precocious (very) early high school graduate to actually do something with that big brain of his. It works. Hiro is impressed enough with what he sees at San Fransokyo Tech Institute that he decides he has to become a student there. (San Fransokyo is the futuristic mash-up of San Francisco and Tokyo that serves as the fictional setting for the story.) So, Hiro sets out to invent something in order to impress Tadashi's professor, Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell), enough to gain Hiro admittance to the program. That works too.
Is "Big Hero 6" somehow a reference to Hiro??? Nobut you're getting warmer.
Hiro's invention is a revolutionary new tiny robot, or microbot. It's smaller than some computer thumb drives, but when it gets together with a bunch (a BIG bunch) of others like it, and their efforts are directed by the thoughts of a human wearing a neurotransmitter headband, their potential is practically limitless. As an interconnected group, they can form shapes, lift and move heavy objects and even transport people across the room or across town. A fire at the lab later that night consumes more than just the lab, and Hiro's dreams and motivation seem destroyed too. Eventually he learns that there was more to that fire than he realized and he builds some carbon fiber armor for Baymax in the hopes that the two of them can get to the bottom of what happened and try to put things right. But it's too big a job for just the two of them. Hiro and Baymax end up getting help from Tadashi's (and, now, Hiro's) college friends, Go Go (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez) and Fred (T.J. Miller). They adapt their inventions to make themselves more formidable than they would be as mere college students, fashion superhero costumes and identities for themselves, and away they go – as a team.
Does "Big Hero 6" refer to the six newly-minted superheroes???? Yes! This film is actually an origin story for a group of superheroes in the Marvel Comics universe. Making this film as an animated feature rather than a live-action movie allows the creators a lot more freedom to create the spectacle that is this film. The animation is amazing. It is not detailed in an HD way, but is impressive in its smoothness. And the colors are as varied and vivid as I have ever seen in an animated movie. The story is great too. As a relatively obscure group of comic book superheroes, the Big Hero 6 can become whoever the creative minds behind the movie want them to become. The script contains elements of danger which give the film a little more depth than in your average animated feature, but keeps it kid-friendly by making Baymax into a physically reassuring presence. The movie is also family-friendly as it clearly endorses respect for elders, healthy ways of dealing with emotions and the selflessness that is required to truly be part of a family (or group of close friends) and make a difference with your life. As an origin story, an Oscar winner and a very profitable film, you can expect a sequel. But what will they call it since the original already ends in a number? Well, I guess that doesn't matter as much as the sequel living up to the quality of the original – especially since most people seem to agree that "Big Hero 6" deserves all the profits and accolades that it has received. I think so too, and give this film an "A-".