Astroboy

The movie based on the anime based on the manga from more than 50 years ago!  I guess this means Hollywood's slowly running out of other people's ideas to make into movies and it's only a matter of time before we see something creative and new, right?  RIGHT!?

...

 So, what about the movie Astroboy?

The movie seems to take a very bizarre focus.  While one would initially expect the primary audience would be fans of the old cartoon, there is an inordinate amount of "childishness" in the movie itself.  It isn't bad to appeal to wider audiences, i suppose, but it sure is jarring when you try to mix childish humour in with more "adult" themes without any form of subtlety or nuance.

The plot is as simplistic as it comes.  As a quick gloss over, here it is:

Dr Bill Tenma (he sounds japanese, right?), voiced by Nicholas Cage, works as a military scientist for the obvious villain of the movie, President Stone (voiced by Donald Sutherland).  During a weapons demonstration, his son, Toby, is killed horribly.

Dr Tenma, crushed, uses his robotics knowledge to build a robot that looks like his son and shares all his memories.  Dr Elefun (Bill Nighy) warns Dr Tenma of the problems of this, but Tenma doesn't listen and is more than a little disconcerted when the resulting Astroboy (Freddie Highmore) is not like his son at all, except in physical appearance.  Tenma then rejects the confused Astroboy and the movie "officially starts" as Astroboy goes on his quest to discover what his "true purpose in life" is.

*phew*

There's a whole bunch of problems with this set up, not the least of which being, "What the hell is Cage doing still making movies?"  Seriously, his career should've ended with National Treasure (next time... next time...).

The stupidness in the plot is that Toby wasn't really "accidentally" killed, either.  He was killed because of the direct, malicious interference of the bad guy.  Stone was pretty clear, too, that he was going to do something dangerous that all the scientists in the room were against.  Of course, Dr Tenma seems to maintain his loyalty to the military inexplicably after this tragedy and his later rejection of Astroboy makes him anything but a sympathetic character in the eyes of the viewer.  Some how, the movie still treats him as such, though.

There's also a lot of talk about "positive" blue energy and "negative" red energy that makes absolutely no sense but drives the plot for the better part of the movie.  As far as the viewer's concerned, though, the only thing that seems to matter is that blue = good and red = bad.  Yup, that simple.

The biggest failing of the movie is in the characters: you'll either love them or hate them, there is no inbetween.  Characters in this movie come in two flavours.  Flavour one: childishly simplistic, like the obviously evil President Stone or the obviously good Dr Elefun.  Flavour two: painfully unlikable, like any of the so-called "comic relief" characters.  The latter are easily the most annoying and unnecessary part of the movie, yet that didn't stop the writers from injecting painfully unfunny jokes into as many scenes as possible.

Despite all the above, though, i do have to say Astroboy isn't the worst piece of shi... cinamatography i've seen and is in fact somewhat entertaining.  It's certainly better than the likes of 9, which has mysteriously managed a rating higher than Astroboy on www.rottentomatoes.com (albeit, both have "rotten" ratings).

Astroboy's not a movie to be taken seriously and the last scene puts the entire movie into perspective:

After defeating the villain and claiming to have found his "purpose" in the world, Astroboy finds acceptance in society as a hero.  Instantly, out of nowhere, a giant tentacled eye appears in the sky.  Someone declares it an alien invasion and off Astroboy goes to save the day!

It's such a ludicrous scene, you can't help but smile - and that's just what i did.  I give this movie 6 and a half nostalgic moments out of 10: C+, why not.