Movie Review - Big Hero 6

courtesy of Disney.com

This past weekend, I went to see Big Hero 6, Disney's newest animated feature. It's been #1 at the box office the last few weeks, and I was excited to see it for myself.

Taking place in the fictional town of San Fransokyo (a clever combination of San Francisco and Tokyo), the movie follows Hiro, a 14 year old genius who loves robotics. Hiro spends his time competing in robot fights, which are illegal. His brother Tadashi, a college student studying robotics, shows Hiro his lab in an attempt to sway Hiro from the robot fights - and it works. Hiro meets Tadahi's friends in the lab (GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred) as well as their professor, Dr. Callaghan.  Hiro also meets Baymax, the personal healthcare robot that Tadashi has created.

Hiro is encouraged by Tadashi to enter into the University's robotics contest, where the winner receives admittance into the school. He impresses Dr. Callaghan and does get into the program, but then a fire at the conference takes the lives of both Dr. Callaghan and Hiro's brother, Tadashi.

In his grief, Hiro connects with Tadashi's friends and also Baymax, the personal healthcare consultant that Tadashi created. When the group encounters a villain who's stolen Hiro's prize-winning robotics design, they band together to bring him to justice.

I REALLY enjoyed this movie. The animation is (of course) incredible, the characters engaging and exciting, and the plot is fast-paced.  It was really clever seeing how they combined the look and feel of both San Francisco and Tokyo to create the fictional city; in the beginning scene, pay attention to how they recreated the famous Golden Gate Bridge.

Baymax steals the show; he was my favorite character, for sure! They've once again created a character that on the surface would seem pretty one-dimensional (a robot) but instead becomes this multi-faceted, interesting, exciting character that you really root for.

If you have little ones (or not so little ones!) in your family who love science and geek-out over new technologies, they will LOVE this movie! I really liked that Disney took the concept of the super hero movie, and put a twist on it by including the science aspect. Yes, there are super heros and they have super powers - but the powers come from the science they're studying. These might not be technologies that we have NOW, but you can imagine these are things that are currently being studied and tested in labs and universities across the world.

I haven't heard any rumors about sequels, but the end of the movie DOES set up the possibility of other Big Hero 6 movies. As long as the story lines are and dialogue are as good as this movie, I'd for sure go and see another Big Hero 6 movie.

The movie is rated PG. I would feel comfortable taking children as young as 3 or 4, but there is a bit of violence (and an off-screen death). If you have little ones who are sensitive to those things, you might want to wait until they're a bit older.

This for for sure be a part of my Disney movie collection when it's released on DVD.  I rate it an A+!

Thanks for reading, and have a magical day!