Disney’s latest animated effort continues their strong trend since Pixar’s John Lasseter too over their animation studio. The studio salvaged what it could out of the messes of Meet the Robinsons and Bolt before starting a string of hits. The last three before Big Hero 6 especially have been really excellent. Big Hero 6 brings continues this strong trend. I don’t know that I liked it quite as much as Wreck it Ralph, but it is still an excellent addition to Disney’s canon.

Big Hero 6 is also the first time Disney has leveraged their purchase of purchase of Marvel as something more than access to the biggest of superheroes. The Big Hero 6 did start as a Marvel comic, though not a particularly successful or memorable one. It was just one more on the pile of, no matter their merit, short lived and largely forgotten superhero teams. It was honestly the perfect thing for Disney to unearth out of their new treasure trove of characters and make their own. It would likely get the attention of Marvel fans that might not be interested in Disney movies without alienating them for changes. It is also a superhero story without being too much of a superhero story. It kind of lets them have the best of both worlds.

That wouldn’t matter if the movie wasn’t good, and it is. Disney’s 3D animation has come a long way from the days of Chicken Little; they are now at least on par with Pixar and Dreamworks. There is a ton of really great animation in this movie, whether it is Hiro and Baymax flying around the stupidly named city of San Fransokyo or the various uses the villains microbots are put to. This movie looks really good.

Big Hero 6 is about Hiro, a young boy struggling with the loss of some family members. He is helped out by a puffy nursing robot invented by his brother, Baymax. Hiro is a genius, and was accepted at a young age into the same robotics program as his older brother. Unfortunately, his brother is killed in a fire at the University; a fire that Hiro learns is not an accident. So he and his brother’s classmates use their research to find out what exactly happened.

While the movie is called Big Hero 6, it is really only about two characters. Hiro and Baymax are very well explored; the rest of the cast is barely fleshed out beyond one or two traits. That is not really a problem. The emotional journey that Hiro and Baymax take is definitely worth the price of admission. However, I can’t help but feel that the other four of the six are underutilized. It is more understandable with the villain, since a big part of the movie is the mystery of exactly who that villain is. I can’t fault the film to much when the central plotline is very well done, but somehow it left me wanting more in a bad way. It felt a little too slight.

In all, Big Hero 6 is an excellent movie. It uses the currently very popular superhero genre to tell a very human story. A story for children that is not necessarily childish. It is just the sort of movie that Pixar made its reputation making, good children movies that are entertaining for everybody.