What’s this all about?
Astro Boy is a CGI adaptation of the Japanese Manga property of the same name, which originated in 1968, and has been around in some form ever since. It isn’t a well-known property in the West, but it’s not unknown, either.
In 2009, Hong Kong-based studio Imagi Animation Studios, tried to kill two birds with one stone by releasing this film in Hong Kong, China, and Japan, where the property was well-known, as well as in the US, where it would serve as an introduction of sorts to the property to American children.
The film tells the story of a young boy living in a futuristic flying city populated by robots of all shapes and sizes. When the boy is killed by one of his father’s experiments gone wrong, the father builds a robotic version of the boy, complete with seemingly limitless robot powers.
This leaves the robot boy to come to terms with his nature, and by extension, the nature of all robots, and humans of other social classes. There are some really deep, and really dark statements about society in the film, as well as a lot of action, explosions, and, you guessed it, perplexing celebrity voice choices.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Dr. Tenma,” a powerful government scientist who has pioneered the development of the advanced robots that function as servants in Metro City, the floating metropolis. He is also the father of Toby, a gifted young boy with a passion for science.
Who else is in this one?
Charlize Theron (Monster) provides the voice of the narrator in the Disney-like “Our Friends the Robots” video that serves as an introduction to the world of Astro Boy. She’s literally only in that one part, which seems like a strange choice.
Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) plays “Cora,” a human teenager who lives on the surface of Earth, below Metro City, and scavenges the junk pile created by the citizens of Metro City simply dumping garbage and their many broken robots over the edge of the city. Kristen Bell does a remarkably good job. I didn’t recognize her voice until I looked it up, and I’ve watched a lot of Kristen Bell stuff.
Eugene Levy (Best in Show)plays “Orrin”, Dr. Tenma’s slave-like household robot. This is perhaps the most perplexing choice, as Eugene Levy has one of the most recognizable voices in showbusiness, and he’s given nothing but bland, obsequious lines, here.
Donald Sutherland (Kelly’s Heroes)plays the evil president. He sounds exactly like Donald Sutherland. It’s fine.
David Alan Grier (In Living Color)and Alan Tudyk (Firefly) play a pair of window washing robots who appear in a few scenes as comic relief. Sadly, these two brilliant and hilarious character actors are very toned down and underutilized.
Samuel L. Jackson (Jackie Brown) plays “Zog,” a giant construction robot who is non-verbal for the entire film, except the very end. Who chose to hire Samuel L. Jackson to deliver one line in a kid’s movie?
Matt Lucas (Come Fly With Me) and Bill Nighy (Hot Fuzz) play a pair of robot revolutionaries (Nighy also voices Dr. Elefun). These characters, and the associated performances, are the highlight of the film. They’re funny, wild, colorful and memorable, just like you’d expect characters in a kid’s movie to be.
I don’t know what went wrong with everyone else.
Did you see that?
After realizing that he is a robot, Toby falls to the surface of the Earth, where his is discovered by a pack of feral children who are scavenging the junk pile. As the children introduce themselves, they explain the reality of Toby’s situation to him. As he comes to realize where he is, and what has happened, the children begin to chant “One of us. One of us.”
This is an obvious, and, frankly, hilarious reference to the legendary scene from the perplexing 1932 film, Freaks.
I found this to be interesting, as I’m sure this joke only worked in the English language version of this film. Somebody involved in this movie knew a lot about movies. That’s not apparent throughout the film. -Michael
Astro really does have limitless technology that of course doesn’t come out until necessary. The sudden and convenient appearance of machine guns that came out of his butt was the pinnacle of this. But, I did enjoy how they even made fun of it in the movie. Right after, Astro also couldn’t believe he had machine guns in his butt. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts? (Michael/Sarah)
After Dr. Tenma has built the robot version of Toby, he sets about returning to his normal daily routine, but he finds that the new Toby isn’t exactly like the “real” Toby. At one point he walks in on Toby and Orrin, who have torn up some books to build models of DaVinci’s flying machines. In the ensuing chaos, Toby puts his hat on Orrin’s head.
This infuriates Nick, who shouts that a robot should not be wearing Toby’s hat.
In that single line delivery, Nick delivers the weight of a father realizing that his creation is not, in fact, his son, and that his son is irrecoverably lost. It’s heartbreaking, and really the only time in the film that Nick portrays the emotional depth of the situation.
It’s a beautiful scene, and makes me wish that the movie had spent more time exploring the darker issues that it briefly surfaces. -Michael
I also picked this scene as the best. When he takes his son’s hat from the servant robot he was angry that he had his dead son’s hat. Then he realized the robot son wasn’t his son and trying to hide his sadness sent him to his room, then he turned to regret. It was an amazing roll from one emotion to the next. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
In an almost inverse scene to the one that I mentioned above, the “second” time “Toby” dies, after fighting the red-core robot to the death, Nick’s response is basically, “Oh, darn. Well, anyway..” Dr. Elefun actually has to run over and revive Toby, which took him maybe 30 seconds. -Michael
Nick’s performance was flat and unconvincing.
I thought the scene at the end of the movie where he gave his servant robot the day off was just weird. It’s like he was going to free him from slavery, but then changed his mind and only gave him the day off. -Sarah
How was the movie?
Astro Boy is a story of a group of people living in a utopian society, but it’s only utopian because they fail, or refuse to see that they have created a class of slaves in the form of robots whom they allow to be destroyed, and then dump onto the planet’s surface, further damaging the environment that they’ve already devastated. Their leaders are war mongers, and they have no compassion, or even awareness of the people who live both figuratively and literally below them.
When Dr. Tenma, arguably the worst of them, creates a robot with the same level of thoughts, feelings, and awareness as his own dead son, he quickly loses interest, and literally throws the child away.
This is all wrapped in a clean, pretty, Disney-esque world, and this could have been a great movie, if it dove into those issues and exposed the reality of the people in the movie.
Instead, halfway through, it just becomes a big robot fight. It really feels like the movie started as something deeper, and somebody (I’m not saying it was the Chinese government) said, “hey, people might get the wrong idea about our own society from this. Tone it down.”
At the very end of the film, after the credits, the viewer is invited to visit Imagi Animation Studios in Hong Kong with a graphic that looks very much like an ad for Disney World or Universal studios. You can’t do that though, and in fact, you never could, because this movie lost so much money that the studio went out of business and never made another film. -Michael
Yes, but the ending was campy and odd. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
I genuinely enjoyed the introductory setup, and some of the themes brought up in the movie, but it just fell apart spectacularly. I didn’t like it. -Michael
I loved the first half. The ending was ok, but it really had the potential to be great and just fell short. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
It’s free on Tubi.
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