Whenever you go to the cinema and see one of these digitally animated kids films you will notice that no matter how bad they may seem to us adults, the kids still seem to lap them up. Finally, after a year which saw endless releases of digimation movies, which was borderline overkill, my own seven year old nephew turned around to me during the screening of Astro Boy and, looking rather nonplussed at the proceedings, exclaimed “this is boring, I only like when the robots are fighting!” I couldn't have said it better myself at the time, however I will try to do so here while echoing a similar level of disdain.

Based on Osamu Tezuka's Japanese Manga Series of the same name, we see how a grieving father, Ministry of Science Doctor Tenma (Nicholas Cage), creates a robot version of his recently deceased son Toby. The intellectually gifted kid was visiting his father's work in order to see a lecture given by Doctor Elefun on two newly discovered energy sources, a blue (good) and red (bad) core which will power a new piece of military hardware: The Peacekeeper robot. When warmongering President Stone (voiced by Donald Sutherland) demands that the red core is applied to the robot it goes on a rampage and ends up destroying poor Toby.

In his hour of despair Doctor Tenma builds a robot version of Toby complete with his son's memories intact thanks to DNA and which is then powered by the blue core. While the robot looks identical to Toby, he does however only serve to remind the grief-stricken father of how much he isn't like his son in every other way. The new Toby does find himself useful when he ends up becoming an unlikely superhero after discovering that he can utilise the blue core within him as a superpower; coming in handy when he must defend Metro City's human populace against the scheming President Stone who wants to literally run the city with an iron fist with his red core-powered robots. With the help of a bunch of poor kids, including love interest Cora, and the trio of “radical” idiot robots known as the “Robot Revolutionary Front” who, as the name would suggest, fancy themselves as a ragtag group of politically motivated revolutionaries. It is in fact these three characters which are the most likeable in the film but they are underwritten and unlike the very funny Steve The Monkey in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, they could have been perfect comedic foil throughout the film, a wasted opportunity especially considering the vocal talents of the brilliant Matt Lucas are used for the amusing character of Sparx.

While there are some noble ecological and political ideals within the plot it doesn't mask what is essentially a poorly scripted and rather plodding superhero tale. Despite the wealth of top film and television personalities providing voice work here (Bill Nighy, Samuel L. Jackson, Matt Lucas, Nathan Lane, etc) there is a lack of the wit and energy of the likes of the aforementioned Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs; here it resembles the more lethargic middle of the road fodder we have seen recently such as Planet 51.

VERDICT:

With a film that is supposedly touted as a superhero action adventure for young audiences there is very little here in the way of thrilling action; the amusing gladiatorial set piece halfway through and then the final ten minutes will keep some of the young action junkies momentarily happy but those scenes are few and far between and the lack of a decent, witty script in between renders the film rather tiresome and laborious. There is nothing much here for adults or kids to enjoy and with the release of some of 2009's more worthy digital animations now on DVD for the youngsters to behold, this may be a case too little too late.

Movie Trivia:

The original cartoon of Astro Boy (or "Mighty Atom" in Japanese) was first seen on Japanese television from 1963 to 1966 as 'Astroboy (1963)' which is credited as the first anime cartoon. The character of Astro Boy first appeared in print as a manga in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka. Another Astro Boy series was remade in the 1980s and again in the 21st century.

Scarlett Johansson was set to voice Cora but was (for unknown reasons) replaced by Kristen Bell.

Towards the end of the teaser trailer we see a man in a red cap and glasses with a big nose as Astroboy flies by. This is the frequent self-caricature of Osamu Tezuka.

The Japanese release of the movie uses the original character model of Astro Boy, maintaining the original bodyform, facial features, and hairstyle rather than the updated character model. The differences can be noted in a comparison between the U.S. and Japanese trailers for the movie.

Entertainment news reports in late January, 2009 stated that production had appeared, at the time, to have shut down, possibly due to the recession.

As Astro Boy is under construction, the blueprint plan briefly seen has been drawn exactly as the character appears in the original "Astroboy" (1963)television series.

In 1999, Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased the film rights to Astro Boy from Tezuka Productions, intending to produce a combination live-action/animatronics/CGI feature film alongside Jim Henson Productions originally slated for a Christmas 2000 release, with Eric Leighton (Dinosaur) attached to direct. Nothing more came out of this announcement.

In June 2004, Eric Leighton was replaced with accomplished animator Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack) with a scheduled 2007 release. However, some time after this announcement was made, Tartakovsky left the film to produce The Dark Crystal (1982)'s sequel, The Power of the Dark Crystal (2011), also for Jim Henson Productions.

In the Japanese version, Megumi Hayashibara was the only one who provided voice work for an Astro Boy anime.

Back to Film Reviews