So, this lovely Sunday morning, I awoke early. I had passes for a 10am screening of Astro Boy.
Now, allow me to explain my place here, as an audience member…I’m not an existing Astro Boy fan. I’m aware of its relevance in Japanese anime/manga history, the importance of Tezuka Osamu, but ultimately, I’m ignorant of the character and it’s history. I enjoyed Imagi’s last film, their 2007 relaunch of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise. Sure, the story was a bit weak, but the animation was stunning, and it seemed like the studio was a few films away from a true classic.
After a delay in starting the screening (the audience was mostly families, and the company sponsoring the screening was hoping to fill the theater a bit more), the lights went dark, and the flick began.
We started in a not-too-distant future (the film never dates itself), where the floating Metro City sits in the skies above Earth, a psuedo utopia. A clean city, where all work is done by robots. And when the city is finished with their robots, they simply dump the broken bots onto the Earth’s surface below. Said background is given in a video presentation in the class of young Toby (Freddie Highmore), son of the amazing scientist Doctor Tenma (a surprisingly reserved Nicholas Cage). Why that video is playing in a physics class, given the pop quiz they are given immediately after, I’m not sure, but I guess they had to shoehorn that in somewhere. Serve the plot.
Turns out, Toby is SUPER smart! He aces the physics test very quickly, and then meets with his robot servant, Orrin (Eugene Levy). Toby has a conversation with his father via hologram, and it turns out the workaholic Doctor Tenma won’t be able to spend time with his son Toby. Doctor Tenma has to finish a very important project, the launch of Iron Monger The Peacekeeper. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, Toby rewires Orrin to go visit his father! And Toby gets there, sneaking his way into the Ministry of Science, meeting the evil President Obidiah Stane Stone (Donald Sutherland, and no, I don’t know how you can be president of a city). Toby pisses off President Stone, and Stone has him taken away by guards. Tenma doesn’t really protest this, and this helps the audience understand that Stone is evil, if his not quite Gran Moff Tarkin look didn’t already give that away.
Cut to the launch of the Peacemaker. He’s designed to be run on Blue Core Energy (a project designed by Doctor Elfun, played by a completely wasted Bill Nighy), a boring macguffin that has an evil negative counterpart, called RED Core Energy! Awesome! The launch of the Peacemaker occurs using the blue core energy, it’s not threatening enough for Evil Villain Stereotype President Stone, so they throw the RED core in, and shit goes haywire. Of course, who has snuck in, but Toby! And who gets stuck with the Peacemaker behind an “energy shield”? You guessed it! TOBY! The Peacemaker tries to break through the shield, is unsuccessful, and the ricocheting blast KILLS TOBY DEAD LEAVING ONLY HIS CAP. Which is seen by every character as a minor inconvenience. What the HELL. A 13 year old child just died, and it’s like President Stone told them they have to work this Saturday.
Ugh.
As you can imagine, this leads to our Pinocchio moment, where a grief ridden Doctor Tenma builds a robot version of his son Toby, powering him with the good Blue Core energy. Of course, like the murdering of a child, this is an effortless creation by Tenma. Because the plot needs it to happen. We have to continue on.
So, Tenma has his Toby back, he’s perfect and amazing, and everything’s good.
Until two scenes later, Tenma has decided that Robot Toby is the worst creation he’s ever had, and he needs to be destroyed.
Why? Because the plot needs it to happen.
Either way, this results in a sequence where Robot Toby learns he can fly, dig through things, has flashlight/x-ray eyes, etc. He apparently wasn’t aware he was a robot.
Now, I know that Robot Toby has Toby’s intelligence, they even said as much. You think the lack of socks, shoes and feet (replaced by robot rocket boots), along with having metal underpants as opposed to gentials DIDN’T GIVE AWAY THAT HE WASN’T NORMAL?!
I know this is a kids movie, but don’t treat the entire audience like we’re retarded. Show some RESPECT.
Anyway, since Doctor Tenma doesn’t want Toby around, he goes flying, evil President Stone notices the flying boy, thinks it’s bad therefor must be destroyed, and he lands on the surface.
We continue with the Pinocchio references, as Robot Toby (now calling himself Astro, a name given to him by the useless addition of a Robot Revolution Force or something like that) ends up taking up with a group of surface dweller human children, including one voiced by Kristen Bell, a girl named Cora who apparently once lived in Metro City. Why did she leave? No idea. Why are the other kids orphans? No idea. All it’s really there for is to keep the plot moving, and get Astro mixed up with Ham Egg, a robot rebuilder who seems like a new father for Astro, but turns against him the minute the plot needs it. This gives us our equivalent to the circus sequence from Pinocchio, as Astro fights a number of robots in a “Robo War” or something like that.
Without giving too much away, I’ll cut to the chase. The film results in a large set piece where Astro ends up back in Metro City, fights President Stone in Iron Monger The Peacemaker. It’s an amazing visual set piece, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no solid reasoning or depth into what occurs. The battle ends with Metro City returning to Earth’s surface, Doctor Tenma loving his Robot Son (just ’cause. I guess Tenma is bipolar), Cora meeting her family, and everyone living happily ever after.
Oh, and then an alien shows up and Astro punches it in the face.
…
Really.
I…I wish I could make reasonable sense as to why this film is as disjointed and nonsensical as it is. Sure, it looks beautiful, but it doesn’t even try to make sense. It’s insulting to it’s audience, it’s insulting to it’s source material, and it’s just poorly done.
And that’s just the surface of many issues in the film. I could rant and rave about how terrible Highmore is as a voice actor (unless they intentionally used the most indifferent of his takes), how inconsistent the environment design was (signs in English! Then Japanese! Then Korean! For no reason!), or how really screwed up it was that a film based on a Japanese property was created with an entirely white cast (seriously, even the background characters were ALL white).
But I’ve already wasted 1100+ words.
Astro Boy is a film to avoid. Like a terrible blind date, sure, it’s nice to look at, but the more it opens it’s mouth, the more time you regret spending with it.
