Disneytacular!

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2014)

It's Disney, of course I enjoyed it. Big Hero 6 has the same type of feel recent Disney movies have had starting from Tangled, to Wreck- it-Ralph to Frozen (and you might have noticed that those 3 movies were highlighted in the Big Hero 6 trailers – "from the creators of "). I can't put my finger on exactly what these films have in common that earlier films didn't, but clearly they make up a new "era" of Disney movies. I wonder what it will come to be called.
Big Hero 6 had great characters. Hiro and Tadashi were great, and I think it was a big deal that they were mixed race, and that their lives incorporated aspects of both Eastern and Western culture. Although that was also partly due to the portrayal of San Fransokyo. I've never been to Tokyo, but I've been to SF enough times to recognize the structures and it was fun to see it get a Japanese architectural twist. The concept of this mash-up city is kinda weird because it raises all sorts of questions about geography and the politics of their world, but the movie makes it not matter. The point wasn't a sound world-building with logical explanations. It was to create a great sense of East meets West. I would've loved to see more East, but hey, it's a start!
I loved the message of pushing the limits of what you can achieve with science. Hiro is a child prodigy who graduated high school at 13 and now is bored with life and doesn't want to go to college for more of the same. But then his brother takes him to his (Tadashi's) lab, and Hiro is amazed by the cutting edge technology that he sees there. It really speaks to him and he is really inspired to contribute to robotics.
You may have seen from the trailers that Hiro designs the super- suits (because this is after all a superhero movie) for the other members of the team, but what was awesome about the group is that Hiro isn't really the only brains of the team. Each of the super- suits actually incorporates tech that the respective member developed, except Fred, I suppose. But Fred is hilarious, from his slacker appearance, science enthusiasm to his family history. Gogo is funny because of her deadpan attitude and she reminds me a bit of Melinda May from Agents of SHIELD. Wasabi is fun and reminded me a little bit of Cyborg from Teen Titans. Honey Lemon was a pretty great character because she was smart and geeky and girly all at the same time. They have varied personalities, none of them stereotypes, and most importantly they each care about their tech deeply and love to expand the possibility of the uses.
And then there's Baymax. Easily the best thing about the movie. Baymax never ventures into the WALL-E territory of a robot having emotions. Baymax operates within the bounds of his programmed logic. We might think he gets excited when he is flying with Hiro, but he really is only reacting to Hiro's emotions. Yet, he is so absolutely lovable, and so funny in how he takes everything so literally, and can deliver emotional scenes without ever having "free-will". I also loved that the flying sequences reminded me so much of How to Train Your Dragon.
All that said though, the movie does fall a tiny bit short of packing the emotional punch we got from Wreck-it-Ralph, or the great sense of superhero team we got from the Incredibles. But it opens up exciting doors, and all MARVEL fans out there can also carry on the tradition of trying to spot the Stan Lee cameo and waiting for the after-credit treat at the end.