Directorial dynamite and a pair of duds

Loosely based on Marvel Comics characters, Big Hero 6 (Disney Animation) soars as high as Up, features the best team of superheroes since The Incredibles and gives the audience its biggest cry since Toy Story 3. Big Hero 6 also has a villain scary enough to rival Maleficent (the animated one, sorry Angelina), parents should be aware of this.

Brothers Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) and Tadashi (voiced by Daniel Henney) live in the city of San Fransokyo with Aunt Cass (v b Maya Rudolph), who raised the boys after their parents died. Boy genius Hiro, who graduated high school at 13, builds bots for fighting. Big brother Tadashi is enrolled at San Fransokyo Tech where his creation, Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit), is a cuddly high tech health care companion who looks like a giant marshmallow.

Hiro meets Tadashi's classmates, including Go Go (voiced by Jamie Chung), Wasabi (voiced by Damon Wayans Jr.), Honey Lemon (voiced by Genesis Rodriguez), and mascot Fred (voiced by T. J. Miller) in the campus "nerd lab," and is wooed to compete in a science showcase that could get him into the tech college at 14. His Microbots invention is a hit. But tragedy strikes and Tadashi is killed in a fire, along with inventor and professor Callaghan (voiced by James Cromwell).

Baymax helps to lift Hiro out of his funk. Then Hiro discovers that his Microbots have been commandeered by a Kabuki-masked evildoer and he finds a new purpose in life. Teaming up with Baymax, Gogo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred, Hiro sets out to save mankind. Big Hero 6 is big on laughs, which will surely appeal to fans of Guardians of the Galaxy. It is also as touching as Wall·E, albeit much more violent. The delightful Disney short Feast, featuring the well-fed Boston Terrier Winston, precedes Big Hero 6.

You've got to hand it to Keira Knightley for stepping out of her comfort zone. Momentarily leaving behind the costume dramas/period pieces through which she first earned our attention, Knightley played a struggling singer/songwriter inBegin Again earlier this year. Now, in Lynn Shelton's Laggies, she's playing an American 20-something who is reliving her teens.

The least ambitious of her group of friends, including bride-to-be Allison (Ellie Kemper) and pregnant Savannah (Sarah Coates), Megan (Knightley) is content to slap on some headphones, stand on a curb and be a sign spinner for her father Ed's (Jeff Garlin) accounting business. Photographer boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber) doesn't push Megan too hard either.

Megan's life takes a serious detour the night of Allison's wedding. After witnessing her father behaving inappropriately and holding Anthony off from proposing to her on Allison's special day, Megan escapes to a supermarket where she encounters a group of underage skateboarding teens, including Annika (Grace Chloe Moretz), who ask her to buy them beer and wine.

With the intention of lying low for a couple of days, Megan camps out at Annika's house. But wait, it gets weirder. After passing muster with Annika's single dad Craig (Sam Rockwell), she takes Annika to see her itinerant lingere model mother Bethany (Gretchen Mol). As if things couldn't get any stranger, Megan and Craig sleep together. But do stick around, because there's a drunk driving incident and arrest, not to mention a jailhouse confession.

Shelton, who has a couple of outstanding queer-themed flicks – Humpday and Your Sister's Sister – under her belt, seems a little less certain here. It could be because she is working with someone else's screenplay (first-time Andrea Siegel). That screenplay, by the way, doesn't do anyone any favors, although Rockwell survives somewhat unscathed. Whatever it is, let's hope Laggies is just a temporary glitch, and everyone is back on their game soon.

In Elsa and Fred, Oscar-winners Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment) and Christopher Plummer (Beginners) looked like they were having a genuinely good time while making Michael Radford's Americanized version of the 2005 Spanish film Elsa y Fred. Good for them! The truth is that both accomplished performers deserve to be in better movies than this one.

Recently widowed grumpy old man Fred (Plummer) is moved into a new apartment in New Orleans by his controlling daughter Lydia (Marcia Gay Harden) and sniveling son-in-law Jack (Chris Noth). He's not especially nice to anyone, including caregiver Laverne (Erika Alexander) or doctor friend John (George Segal), although he reserves some kindness for grandson Michael (Jared Gilman).

Elsa (MacLaine), who has either an overactive imagination or is a pathological liar (depending on your point of view), lives across the hall from Fred. She is looked after by son Raymond (Scott Bakula) and taken advantage of by son Alec (Rog Rogers). Elsa, who claims to be a widow, as well as the subject of a Picasso painting, is all sunshine and lollipops, in spite of serious health issues.

As you might have guessed, Elsa and Fred have a positive effect each other, becoming an item. They have a series of (mis)adventures, leading to a trip to Rome where Elsa gets to live out a Felliniesque fantasy. Nowhere near as charming or refined as the current spate of films aimed at mature audiences (see The 100 Foot Journey or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Elsa and Fred has more in common with a downer such as My Old Lady, and that makes it a disappointment.