Review of Astro Boy (2009) by Scott E — 12 Jan 2011

This movie just wasn't very good by today's standard for cartoon entertainment. Compare it to Ponyo or Tangled or Toy Story 3 and you see a huge disparity in quality.

The opening is what soured me on the film. The opening description of cloud city and the state of the Astro Boy world was necessary but it was terribly mailed in by Oscar winner Charlize Theron. You could hear her reading off cue cards, it was bland, and then you find it was intentionally done that way. The rest of the film never seems to work out. Nicolas Cage didn't seem to have his heart in it, although Kristen Bell gave a professional effort, and Freddie Highmore did his best, which was okay. The problem was that the director didn't seem to have high demands, how many takes did he get out of his cast? The animation was okay, but the film never cried out for a movie theater or 3D, it seemed to be average TV fare.

The story line was supposed to be emotional the main character dies early in the film and re-created as a robot, there is supposed to be a ton of heavy emotional feelings in the film, but they are mailed in. And the overall message kinda got lost,the film was a fraction of teh quality it should have been. My son enjoyed it, but I was feeling pretty "ho-hum". Director David Bowers did not earn a fan with this film. He should look at Bird's "Iron Giant" or "The Incredibles"as a way to gauge his next effort. The bar has been set high, and if he isn't aiming for that, he's not going to make a film that rates up there.