While it isn't terribly original, and it seems to have a political agenda that may rankle some viewers, Astro Boy boasts enough visual thrills to please its target demographic.
While it isn't terribly original, and it seems to have a political agenda that may rankle some viewers, Astro Boy boasts enough visual thrills to please its target demographic.
audience
52
liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 144,308
A young robot with incredible powers, super strength, and the purest spirit on the planet discovers the joys of being human while embarking on a worldwide journey to discover his true potential in this animated update of Osamu Tezuka's classic anime story. Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore) is a young robot from futuristic Metro City. Created by a brilliant scientist named Tenma (Nicolas Cage), and powered by pure positive "blue" energy that gives him such abilities as x-ray vision, inhuman speed, and
flight, the wide-eyed android longs to find his true place in the world. He sets out on an epic journey that brings him face to face with an underworld army of robots and some of the strangest creatures ever to walk the Earth, and along the way learns to experience human feelings and emotions. Astro Boy's remarkable mission of discovery is suddenly cut short, however, when he learns that his friends and family back in Metro City are in grave danger. As Astro Boy prepares to face off against his greatest adversary in order to save everything he cares most about, he realizes that only through victory will he finally discover what it takes to be a hero. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
I just felt like this was a mistranslation -- almost trying to combine the slightly sinister, cold world of Japanese anime with the warm, sentimental, fuzzy, bouncy world of Hollywood kid animation.
David Bowers' retro-cool update on the titular icon looks so great, it may take a while to notice it's a clunky political parable wrapped in a tonally confused fairy tale.
There is quite a bit of solid craft at work in Astro Boy ... but it feels rushed, ill-prepared and derivative. And that's because it is rushed, ill-prepared and derivative.
Bowers's play-it-straight attitude towards the material combined with the crisp, if unspectacular, animation doesn't allow 'Astro Boy' a moment to bob its head above the ever-swelling digimation pack.
Like TMNT, Astro Boy lacks originality and falls short of it's source material. So fans of the anime may be dissapointed but for the rest of us it's actually great to look at. It's not a great movie. But its a fun watch. It's a good kid's movie.
January 7, 2012
Michael Miller
Super Reviewer
Astro Boy is a suitable first-entry into the SciFi genre, with all the charm, thrills and fun that its demographic needs in a classic premise of political morality straight from its source material.However, somewhere along the line when it was thrown through the "Hollywood/Pixar/Dreamworks" blender it comes out the
other side as a bit of an emotional derivative for the older audiences.If anything? It could have (and should have) been hell of a lot darker. I guess the folks at marketing just couldn't bring themselves to making this cute little guy as mature and sophisticated as he was meant to be.Still, for what it is it's entertaining and more than watchable.
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