Big Hero 6 (3D), movie review: Subtle and moving but with all the thrills of a big-budget movie

(PG) Don Hall, Chris Williams, 108 mins Voiced by: Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, TJ Miller, Jamie Chung

Hiro and Baymax in ‘Big Hero 6’

This is fusion film-making, a Disney-made, John Lasseter-produced film set in "San Fransokyo," a city that is part San Francisco and part Tokyo. It plays heavily on Japanese ideas of animism – the belief that non-human objects can have a spiritual life.

You'll have to have a very hard heart not to warm to its lovable healthcare robot hero, Baymax, a white balloon-like figure with more than a passing resemblance to the Michelin man. He is the creation of Tadashi, a computer-programming guru whose troubled, robotics genius younger brother Hiro Hamada activates and takes control of him.

The film deals in a subtle and moving way with grief and teenage anxiety while serving up all the thrills of a big-budget animated movie with superhero protagonists.

It is also refreshing to come across a film based on a Marvel comic that celebrates geeks and pays more attention to its teen hero's intellect than to his robots' fighting prowess.