"Welcome to the nerd lab."

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2014)

I almost never come to the IMDb reviews prior to seeing a new release because I don't want to be influenced by either the positive or negative ones. This time I missed out on learning that there's an after credits cameo by the legendary Stan Lee, Marvel Comics' all time go-to guy for everything super-hero. Had I known "Big Hero 6" came from an all but forgotten Marvel property, I would have hung around.
In the execution though you'd never know it. The characters are ones I'd never heard of before, and my understanding is that they don't really represent the ones from the comic book. So strictly speaking, it didn't really make a difference one way or the other. I guess for kids this will be a fairly entertaining flick, the characters are colorful with cool names like Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Fred. Baymax reminded me of the marshmallowy looking guy at the end of "Ghostbusters".
The concept that intrigued me the most was all that business about microbots and how mind control might eventually play a part in shaping reality the way it was portrayed here. It's kind of a scary thought actually but you know someone's working on stuff like this behind the scenes. After all, cell phones started out as communication devices on 'Star Trek' back in the Sixties, so who knows what's coming down the pike.
For me at least, the film didn't break any new ground in the way of story telling or animation. There was a minor twist identifying the real villain of the piece, but essentially, this has all been said and done before, so toward the end of the picture I was getting kind of antsy. Seeing the picture was part of the day's festivities for my granddaughter's birthday. She and her friend are six years old and it looked like they were getting a kick out of it along with the big box of popcorn and soft drink. Neither one knew anything about Stan Lee.