Big Hero 6 (PG)
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Caution: spoilers.

This came out in 2014, but I didn't see it until 2017. It's loosely based on a Marvel comic book of the same name, which I've never read. The film was accompanied theatrically by the short film Feast, which I first saw when I got this movie on DVD. Um... I also kind of want to mention something about the Disney Wiki. I visit the site fairly often, mainly to add links to specific pages for reviews of Disney movies I've just watched. And so I notice that the wiki's background changes fairly frequently, usually based on whatever's going on with Disney in general, at the time. And I remember one time I visited the wiki, and there was this animated girl I immediately crushed on, and wanted to know what she was from. Well, I suppose I soon learned that the character in question was Honey Lemon, from this movie. (I may or may not have been aware of the movie before seeing that background on the wiki. I probably was aware of it, but I can't remember for sure. Either way, it made me want to see the movie all the more.)

So there's this 14-year-old genius named Hiro Hamada who lives in San Fransokyo. He graduated from high school early, and could have gone on to college, but instead decided to compete in robot battles, using a little robot he built. Which would be fine, except he bets on the battles, which is illegal. Hiro and his older brother, Tadashi, are orphans, who have been raised by their aunt, Cass (Maya Rudolph). Tadashi tries to dissuade Hiro from continuing his delinquent ways by taking him to the technological institute where he goes to school, and introducing him to his friends. They include Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), GoGo Tomago (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), and the school's mascot, Fred (T.J. Miller, whose voice work is familiar to me from How To Train Your Dragon, and whose character design and personality in this movie both kind of reminded me of his character in that movie). Tadashi also introduces Hiro to a robot he'd created called Baymax (Scott Adsit, best known to me from 30 Rock, though I didn't recognize his voice here at all). Baymax is supposed to be a sort of doctor, or whatever. Also, the head of the institute is a famous scientist named Professor Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell). After meeting all these people (and Baymax), Hiro decides to give up robot battling and apply to the institute. But first he has to design some tech for a big competition. He creates microbots that can combine to do all sorts of incredible things. This greatly impresses Callaghan, who offers him admission to the institute. But there's also a guy named Alistair Krei (Alan Tudyk), who offers to buy the rights to Hiro's microbots. Hiro declines that offer, choosing to go to the school, instead.

But before he can even enroll, there's an explosion in the school which supposedly destroys almost all his microbots, as well as killing Professor Callaghan and Tadashi. After that, Hiro is too distraught to register for the school, or to do anything at all. However, eventually it turns out that Baymax has survived, as has one of the microbots. The microbot wants to rejoin the others of its kind, and... I don't want to divulge too much more. I'll just say there's a villain who needs to be defeated, and Hiro makes some upgrades to Baymax, as well as creating super suits and weapons for himself as well as Honey, GoGo, Wasabi, and Fred. So together they become the superhero team "Big Hero 6." And ultimately they do defeat the villain, but there are some plot twists along the way.

It's a fairly fun movie, with some real drama and dark emotions, as well as decent humor and action. I didn't like it as much as I'd hoped I would, mainly because I felt most of the characters were underdeveloped. (I mean, there's a pretty good foundation for their personalities, but they're not explored as thoroughly as I would have liked.) But there may be a sequel, and there's a TV series (which I haven't been able to see, unfortunately). So deeper character development will probably happen. Oh... and I should mention there's a pretty cool bonus scene after the end credits of the movie. Anyway, I'm definitely glad to have finally seen the movie. There's also a short webseries called Baymax!