In what is again a welcome shift away from the films which have filled the cinemas in recent weeks, it seems the schedules and screenings are returning to what we, the general public who consume far too much KFC, laugh at cat pictures on our smartphones and are shocked by pictures of movie stars buying food, actually like.

Granted there are still a good number of awards candidates, but one notably has arrived in British cinemas recently from Disney, whose Pixar powered animation studio has presented hot on the heels of the award winning Frozen (who by the way, refused to let it go…see what we did there?) last year, Big Hero 6.

Big Hero 6 is based on a Marvel property about as well known outside those circles as that last damn question on the pub quiz about that guy who was in that thing one time. Instead of relying on Marvel themselves to bring this to the big screen, we have an animated romp through the semi-futuristic city of San Fransokyo (twinned with Grimsby) and we are introduced over time, to the 6 themselves.

Damn you bouncy castle for talking me into this!

The story begin with Hiro (I need a Hiro!!! Sorry), a 14-year-old wunderkind who likes to turn up to various back-alley robot fights with his little toy with a lovely face that just happens to destroy the competition. Basically the guy is a little hustler and in the opening few minutes, it almost bites him in the arse, were it not for his big brother Toshiba. Sorry, Tadashi.

Big Bro is clearly worried that Hiro is wasting his potential just going to the back alley fights which apprently are also illegal and decides to take a little detour with Hiro to an extraordinarily well specced out robotics lab at his university, where we then meet the rest of the group who will come to play a bigger part in the story later on.

The names are shall we say, interesting; GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred. Fred is not the guy from Scooby Doo, as basically if he was anyone, he would be Shaggy for sure.

Amazed at all the gear, people and probably the fact the coffee is free, Hiro decides to apply to said school and gets to work on little robots during a lovely Rocky montage sequence. The result of said montage is then presented at a science fair which gets everyone going like the time Steve Balmer came onto the stage for Microsoft and whooped for about 10 minutes. There is various amounts of interest in the little robots and this is where it takes a turn for the worse where Hiro pretty much will shut down, until the true star of the film appears.

He can be also used as a s……. no no, cannot write that….

The star of of the film is Baymax, a self inflating medical robot who just wants to treat boo boos and make you feel better while being able to be used as a floation device in case of emergency. He is basically a personal healthcare robot Tadashi created and who will help Hiro in his time of crisis, and frankly he is the best reason to watch this let alone for anything else.

It’s wonderful how his inflatable nature and unendingly helpful attitude provides a source of comedy which is so simple and effective. The fun of first watching Baymax navigate round a bed which is tight, you see it coming and yet, you can’t help but laugh. His literal taking in of information too provides a lovely innocence to proceedings which given the tragic loss that befell Hiro in the opening portion of the film, provides balance to the two characters.

Hiro and Baymax most really shine during an investigation where after following the only surviving little robot to a dark warehouse, we are then introduced to an evil plot, which involves the little robots that Hiro created and our dymanic duo are attacked by a masked man who is controlling the bots.

Nope, not evil, honest,

There is a point where Baymax is running on low battery power and starts acting a little funny. Having only ever seen Bender from Futrarama act drunk, it is pure gold to see Baymax in this fashion and frankly it was genius to play the issue out this way.

Hiro’s attempts to beef up Baymax into a lean-ish mean fighting machine too, also plays out in somewhat unexpected and remarkably adult ways given the demographic this is clearly aimed for. Baymax also in caring and thoughtful and at times, the growth we witness is actually….heart warming. Yes, I used the words heart warming….I feel so dirty.

Enough of Hiro and Baymax, what about the rest? Well the world created within the film is certainly one that is exciting to explore and perhaps in keeping with the original creation, it’s brilliant to see a meshing of two different cultures together, to provide a great background for events to take place against.

Disney however, have a formula which seems to not want to be messed with at all, and the few plot twists, while perhaps not completely unforeseen and indeed pretty much fit how Disney like to spring these things out, in hindsight, were pretty well executed and gave context as why things were happening.

They love to spring out also the emotional moments where even the most stone faced humans will break down into a blubbering mess, and there are certainly some of those on display here. But none of them are out of context and again, well executed, the sequence with Tadashi being at the forefront of those as we see his experimentation with Baymax in the early days. Hiro’s anger playing out too at key times, only serve to further underline the pain he feels and you understand why he is angry too.

Now you may have noticed that most of this muttering on, as pretty much forgotten the rest of the characters mentioned earlier. Seriously, you must be wondering what GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Not Shaggy bring to the picture? Got to be honest, it wasn’t a lot aside from a few good jokes and a fantastic cameo right at the end with Stan Lee, which frankly got spoiled way before the film came out.

Alright, on the back seat with a lady…..giggerty…..

In many respects, while handy for providing the team members which pulls together in a time of crisis while wearing funky costumes (Not Shaggy’s monster costume being the product of snorting too much cocaine while watching Pokemon no doubt), the real focus will always be on Hiro and Baymax, and perhaps in reality, that is doing a disservice to the rest of the motley crew, though having never been exposed to the source material this was based on, it’s hard to say if it is any different or not.

So overall, would you go and watch this at the cinema? Yes. A thousand times yes.

It was a very very enjoyable experience, with Baymax providing one of the best characters again in recent years from a Disney studio, and despite the supporting characters being pretty much forgettable, it’s something of which, I hope we get to see more of as a series because there is a solid foundation here to build on.