Film Review - Big Hero 6

I was a little bemused when I went to see this at the weekend as I was sure that there hadn’t been five preceeding movies…

This is Disney‘s latest animation and it is pitched at older kids. Frozen worked well with toddlers and preschool children but this one wants the 8-14 age group. For a start it is a bit darker than Frozen and it doesn’t have singing. The death of the parents in Frozen is very tastefully done in the way that the ship just sort of disappears. After that there is little to remind you of their death once the movie skips forwards. In Big Hero 6, Hiro’s older brother runs into a burning building which then erupts in a fireball explosion. There are several other references to the death at points in the movie, including attempts by BayMax to help Hiro overcome the grief at the loss of his brother.

The movie isn’t all dark though. There is a lot of humour, some of which is multilayered and works for the kids and the adults for different reasons. My son has been repeating and parodying bits of the low battery scene for the last two days. I quite liked the personality that BayMax was given and despite Hiro’s best efforts to reprogramme it as a bot fighter BayMax sticks to the medical programme, albeit with karate skills and a very funny fist bump.

The other major aspect is that there are robots involved. Hiro starts the story as a 14 year old genius robot builder who has finished high school. There is an awesome bot fight scene to start the movie. This is followed up later with the team of heroes, which is where the name of the movie comes from, being robot engineers from the university where Hiro’s older brother was studying.

There’s loads of action, I especially enjoyed the car chase when the bad guy was chasing the six cramped into a very small car. It played very well. The team sort themselves out after the car chase in classic movie style with a set of robotic suits that fit their specialist skills.

Overall I really enjoyed it. Not sure I would have chosen to go see it without the kids, but it was worth seeing. I watched it in 3D but didn’t get much out of the 3D side of things. So it will probably be fine in 2D.

I foresee this being added to our DVD collection. Also it has enthused my nine year old and he has spent what was left of his Christmas money on a BayMax toy.