Big Hero 6, Blu-ray (2015)
Voice Actors: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Jamie Chung
Directors: Chris Williams & Don Hall
Studio: Walt Disney 124656 [2/24/15] (Blu-ray+DVD+dig. HD, 2 discs) (Also available in 3D)
Video: 2.39:1 for 16:9 1080p HD
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1, DD 5.1, French DD 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Dubbed in French & Spanish
Extras: Theatrical short: Feast, The Origin Story of Hero’s Journey, Big Hero Secrets, Big Animator & The Characters Behind the Characters, Deleted Scenes, Previews
Length: 102 min.
Rating: *****
The complex story hangs around a 14-year-old computer genius name Hiro Hamada, living in the city of San Fransokyo. Some of the street scenes use actual photography of San Francisco cleverly mixed with the animation in a new technique. Hiro spends his time in the battle robot underground with his advanced little robot which can destroy every competitor. His older brother is a robotics engineer student who has developed Baymax (who looks like the Pillsbury doughboy), an inflated, cushy robot specializing in health care. The makers researched many different universities for help on the movie and the robot represents a new field called “soft robotics.” The good-natured health-care robot is one of the funniest and most endearing things in the film. Though all the science and engineering stuff might bore the little kids.
Hiro enters a competition for nerds with his tiny swarming microbots. But his winning results in a fire in which his brother is killed and the film’s villian takes over all the microbots. Hiro designs superhero suits for all his nerd friends and they go out to challenge the villian, which is not easy at all. He is using Hiro’s own creation against him. Each one of the friends becomes a completely different superhero with unique special abilities.
The film – a Disney and Marvel comics coproduction – clearly promotes education, nerdiness, technology, science and engineering, and all the gadgets in the film are based on real research and inventions. The animation is very detailed and fast-moving – one almost wants to slow it down frequently to see exactly what is happening. There seem to be some spectacular effects that might be really exciting in the available 3D version, but unfortunately it seems increasingly impossible for us to obtain the 3D versions for review. I thought the industry wanted to promote 3D, and there are so few good 3D movies; guess not.
—John Sunier
