BEFORE: Turns out there are no mistakes here at Honky's Movie Year - this film runs on a similar theme as "Metropolis", which featured a man making a robot in the image of his dead daughter (I think), and this film has a man making a robot in the image of his dead son. It could be coincidence - unless that's a very common theme in Japanese animation, I wouldn't know. Or maybe I'm just plain lucky.
THE PLOT: Set in futuristic Metro City, Astro Boy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost.
AFTER: I rather liked this one - a vast improvement over "Metropolis". Good movies often steal - I mean, borrow - from other films, and this one is no exception. Sort of like a modern-day "Pinocchio" (filtered through Spielberg's "A.I."), mixed with "Robots", set in a polluted future Earth like the one seen in "Wall-E", with a supporting cast straight out of "Oliver Twist". Stir in the action of a gladiator film (or is it "Battlebots"?), and all of the elements are in place.
Kids might just enjoy the action of the film, and adults might grok some of the higher ideas, like the environmental messages, the anti-war messages, and a parent grieving over a lost child. All that sort of elevated it and prevented it from being just another CGI special-effects fest, with slapstick comedy mixed in.
A pretty great voice-cast too - it's a shame this film didn't do better in the theaters, this is the kind of animated film I can get behind. I'm hoping that "Megamind" and "Despicable Me" turn out to be somewhat in this vein.
NITPICK POINT #1: Why did the scientist make a robot version of his son, instead of a clone - he had his son's DNA. Is cloning illegal in the future, or just too controversial now?
NITPICK POINT #2: At one point, the father asks his robot butler to conceal Astro Boy's true nature. Asking a robot or computer to lie is a bad idea - remember "2001"?
Starring the voices of Freddie Highmore (last seen in "Finding Neverland"), Nicolas Cage (last seen in "Honeymoon in Vegas"), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "A Time To Kill"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "Valkyrie"), Kristen Bell (last seen in "Couples Retreat"), Charlize Theron, Ryan Stiles (last seen in "Hot Shots Part Deux"), Eugene Levy (last seen in "Armed and Dangerous"), and David Alan Grier.
RATING: 7 out of 10 wrenches
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