A Movie Review: Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6 is a Disney animated movie.  The lead character is Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) who lives in the city of San Fransokyo.  He spends his time creating robots so that he can participate in the  city's underground robot wars.  For some reason, such events are illegal in San Fransokyo.  (Wouldn't one think that the police have more pressing crimes that would take up their time?)  His older brother, Tadashi (voiced by Daniel Henney), wants him to pursue an education in robotics.  Hiro resists.  Tadashi brings Hiro via a sly side trip to his university and gives a tour of all the cool projects that various students are creating.  This includes an introduction to a medical robot that Tadashi is designing, Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit).  Hiro can't resist any longer and wants to join the program; however, in order to join the program he has to present a project that impresses the leading professor at the university, Robert Callaghan (voiced by James Cromwell).

Hiro invents microbots that can form whatever the mind desires.  Thoughts of images desired are transmitted to the microbots via a device that sits nicely around a person's head.  Hiro is immediately accepted to the program and is off to celebrate with his brother and future fellow classmates.  Unfortunately, a fire explodes (perhaps via a project that didn't go all that well) in the university's laboratory.  It is learned that Callaghan is still in the building.  Tadashi rushes into the burning building to find Callaghan.  The building explodes, killing Tadashi.

Hiro goes into a state of depression.  While hidden away in his room, he has an accident.  Out pops Baymax from the side of his brother's bed.  At the same time, Hiro notices that a single microbot that is in his possession begins to act strangely.  It seems to want to get pulled in a specific direction.  Hiro and Baymax allow the microbot to guide them to a warehouse where they soon learn that someone has decided to mass produce microbots for less than noble reasons.

I don't believe this is one of the better animation movies to come out of Disney.  First off, who really thinks that designing microbots that can be controlled by a person's thoughts is a good idea?  I immediately couldn't help but think about all the bad things individuals could do with such a creation.  My next irritation regarding the movie was that over-the-top product placement of our evil character who looked all too similar to a character from Star Wars.  Finally, this movie just didn't seem to have much heart to it.