When an android replica of a boy is rejected by his aggrieved creator, he goes off to find his own identity in an adventure that would make him the greatest hero of his time. When a scientist's young son dies, he secretly creates a powerful robot child to replace him, however the robot uses it's incredible powers to become a world famous super-hero, and faces his biggest challenge when an alien race threatens Earth… The animated Astro Boy is a shiny hodgepodge of Pinocchio, Star Wars (see the Stormtrooper-like characters protecting the President), WALL-E, Oliver Twist, Gladiator and Superman, with some obvious visual touches taken from The Iron Giant. As its own entity, though, it's pretty forgettable. It almost feels like there are too many movies competing simultaneously in what is essentially a pretty standard tale of good versus evil.<br/><br/>The jokes aren't all that funny and the father-son relationship between Astro Boy (Highmore) and brilliant scientist Dr. Tenma isn't all that moving. There's a lot going on, maybe too much going on, but none of it ever really grabs you. On a positive note along those same innocuous lines, the movie is sufficiently bright and colorful for kids of all ages without ever being too scary.<br/><br/>Once Dr. Tenma realizes that this robot version of his child is nonetheless inferior and sends him away, Toby flees the floating, gleaming Metro City and lands back on the Earth below which is now a trash dump where he becomes known as Astro Boy. There, he meets other orphaned children who grubbily root around for spare robot parts to bring back to their Fagin-like father figure, Hamegg (Lane). The trash can that follows them around and looks like a pug is surprisingly enough named Trashcan, how original.<br/><br/>Astro wants to fit in with the others, namely the street-smart Cora (Bell), and forge some sort of normal life. But high among the clouds in Metro City, President Stone (Donald Sutherland) is after him for his Blue Core, a powerful crystalline nugget that Dr. Tenma implanted in his chest. You see, there's a Blue Core and a Red Core. The blue one provides a peaceful, benevolent strength, while the red one turns you into a ferocious killing machine. The Donald Rumsfeld-like president wants to control them both for his ironically named "Peacekeeper," a burly device intended to dominate Earth: "I've got an election to win and I need my robot to be a fighter, not a lover," he says early on. Ultimately, it was never explained why the Peacekeeping evil robot was needed in the first place.<br/><br/>And so the obvious inevitably arrives: Astro Boy must return to his home to fight the ultimate fight and face his ultimate destiny. Snooze. He also might run into his dad again. You never know. Honestly, I didn't actually watch the famous anime series, but I understand that the franchise was pretty popular alongside the likes of Pokemon and Dragonball. When this movie came out, I was surprised because Astro Boy hasn't been talked about that much in recent times, so I checked it out and found myself entertained.<br/><br/>Plot: When a weapons test accidentally kills his son Toby, Dr. Bill Tenma (Nicolas Cage), with the help of fellow scientist Professor Elefun (Bill Nighy), builds a robotic copy with advanced weaponry later named Astro. After soon being rejected by his father and chased by an ego maniacal, war-mongering president who desires his power source, Astro runs away from the floating Metro City and makes new friends on the surface, but he'll soon realize that he can't run away from his destiny as Earth's new robotic hero.<br/><br/>This movie delivers cool action scenes, good story, and nice graphics. The voice cast is great, from Nicolas Cage to Bill Nighy to even Nathan Lane from "Lion King." My only problems are a few lame jokes and some minor characters that are rather pointless.<br/><br/>Overall, this film is nicely done with very few things things to nitpick. It's at least worth a watch. Onward and upward! The lighting, production design, and character modeling are excellent, and director David Bowers (Flushed Away) references "Frankenstein," "Wall-E," "Transformers," and even Abraham and Isaac. But the TV series, primitive though it was, had a sweet innocence and joyfulness that made it more fun.
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293 weeks ago