BIG HERO 6

Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

Running time: 102 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Big Hero 6 from YouTube.



In Walt Disney Pictures Big Hero 6, Hiro/Ryan Potter has his invention stolen and used for evil by a man in a kabuki mask, so Ryan/Potter uses his brother Tadashi/Daniel Henney's robot Baymax/Scott Adsit to stop him.

Based on the Marvel Comics superhero team by Man of Action, and mainly draws from the mini-series where Wasabi and Fred first appeared. Big Hero 6 is the 54th Disney animated feature and is the first Disney animated feature film to feature characters from Marvel Entertainment and gave special thanks to Marvel - although this movie is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As much as I wanted it to be part of the MCU, Big Hero 6 is not part of that universe.

Set in the hybrid metropolis San Fransokyo, a combination of San Francisco and Tokyo, Hiro/Potter is a punk robotics expert engaging in robofights. Older brother Tadashi/Henney, trying to get Hiro/Potter off the streets, takes Hiro/Potter to his robotics lab at his university The Institute of Technology where Hiro/Potter meets his friends Go Go/Jamie Chung, Wasabi/Damon Wayans Jr., Honey Lemon/Genesis Rodriguez, and mascot Fred/T.J. Miller - as well as Baymax/Adsit, an inflatable soft robotics huggable personal health care robot that Tadashi/Henney created to help people. Tadashi/Henney's teacher, Professor Callaghan/James Cromwell gets impressed with Hiro/Potter. Hiro/Potter wants to go the nerd school and designs his own robotics project for the annual exhibition so he can get an invitation to the school. Soon, a man in a mask steels Hiro's/Potter's project and Hiro/Potter and his nerd friends, with the help of Baymax/Adsit, form a superhero team and go after the masked man to get answers.

The geek/nerd in me liked the fact that the characters are all geniuses. This is a positive portrayal for education for young people, especially when Hiro/Potter says that he has to get into this nerd school. I have had nephews and nieces enter robotic competitions, so the robots, especially penguin waddling Baymax/Adsit, were also cool to me. I also like the fact that Hiro/Potter is the first biracial lead in a Disney animated film. Hiro/Potter's invention for the annual exhibition reminds me of the Power Ring from Green Lantern where the only limit is your imagination. While yes Big Hero 6 is a story of a boy and his robot Baymax/Adsit, the movie is much more than what the trailer commercials that most people have seen as part of the marketing campaign portrays. Visually the animation style of the movie reminds me of Japanese manga with a Disney feel. Big Hero 6 is the first Disney animated film to be adapted into a Japanese manga.

For Stan Lee fans, there is a portrait of him in Fred's/Miller's house and some of the audience reacted positively to seeing that scene. I also liked that Fred/Miller's dialog was mostly improvised by comedian Miller.

Of course, being based on a Marvel comic, there is an after credits scene at the end of the movie. I think that this was the best after credits scene that I have ever seen of any movie, Marvel included. There is a special credit at the end of this scene. Those few in the audience that had stayed behind during the credits music for this scene applauded. Being part of a comic book series, I would not be surprised if there were a sequel or even a series of movies to Big Hero 6 in the near future with further adventures of this superhero team.

Big Hero 6 is the first animated Marvel film to be released theatrically via Walt Disney Animation Studios. This is also the first Disney animated feature which shows the studio logos in the beginning, and the main title, the closing credits sequence, and the studio logos at the end, as well as the first to have "Created and Produced at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Burbank, California" at the end. It is also the first WDAS feature to use Disney's Hyperion Rendering system for light shining through a translucent object like Baymax/Adsit's covering.

In the beginning of the movie was a short feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Feast.  This was a cute short about hungry Boston terrier dog Winston and his master James. Feast  was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject at the 42nd Annie Awards.

I also saw this movie on the day that the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered, on Black Friday 2014. At the end of the trailer the audience applauded. One guy behind me said, Again! Again!

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Big Hero 6 from YouTube.



Click below to watch a final movie trailer of Big Hero 6 from YouTube.



Rated PG for violence. Running time: 102 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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Real Steel

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 127 Minutes

















Click below to watch the Real Steel trailer.



Set in the near future, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Real Steel has down on his luck ex-boxer Hugh Jackman using the last of his money getting fighting gigs for his second-hand robot boxers - which gets trashed. When Jackson gets temporary custody of his orphaned son Dakota Goyo, Jackson reluctantly uses Goyo's boxing robot to earn more cash as he travels from city to city searching for his next boxing match.

Because the money went from human boxers to robot boxers for more violence, Jackman searches for parts to make another robot in a junkyard. After inadvertently saving Goyo's life in the junkyard, Goyo scavenges the remains of the small sparring robot Atom, that saved Goyo's life, from the junkyard. When Jackman's former girlfriend Evangeline Lilly overhauls Atom for Goyo, Goyo soon persuades Jackman to coordinate Atom's boxing skills. Built to take punches, Atom soon goes up the ranks of both the underground robot league and the World Robot League.

This movie is basically The Champ with robots. Or to get a better picture, it is The Champ, Rocky, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Robocop - without the criminal violence. This is basically a remake of The Twilight Zone's episode Steel, adapted from the 1956 short story by Richard Matheson. With Goyo in the film, it is a very cute human film - but very predictable. As Jackman's son, Goyo holds his own against Jackman.

The filmmakers wanted to make this movie in the "near future." Because this is a "science fiction" film, the opening shots can be confusing as it is set in a normal-looking Mid-West. You might think you are in the wrong theater - or rented the wrong movie - if you have not seen the movie before, because the filmmakers wanted the movie to be very familiar to the audience. The film being familiar is also evidenced by the various product placements, including Hewlett Packard and ESPN.

The robot boxing fights were motion-captured from professional boxers - who were supervised by world boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard. Leonard's training also made Jackman's boxing performance believable. A part of the boxing scenes is like a computerized version of the old toy "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots" by Marx/Mattel. The Rocky movies have a big influence on the film, with the final fight scene basically being a blow-by-blow scene from Rocky IV. The operatic championship music was by composer Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo fame.

Rated PG-13 for language and violence. Running time 127 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.