Astro Boy
I used to be a huge Nicolas Cage fan, but am I the only person who just hears his voice or sees his face in a commercial and assumes the movie will be a dreadful, horrible, failure of a film? Seeing a trailer for Astro Boy haunted me for weeks and caused me to have all sorts of flashbacks to Ghost Rider, Wicker Man, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Knowing. It was a montage of disaster that should be used to punish criminals in maximum security instead of putting them in the hole.

In this animated feature, Freddie Highmore provides the voice of Astro Boy - a robot built by Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) in the image of his dead son after a horrible tragedy. The robot has been filled with all of the son's memories, so Astro Boy doesn't quite understand why his father is rejecting him, but, suddenly, he has bigger problems to deal with.

Astro Boy was brought to life using some sort of blue ball of energy that makes him faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive (and so forth and so on), so the war hawk president (Donald Sutherland) of this floating city in the clouds wants to use Astro Boy to win re-election (Floating city? Where’s Lando Calrissian when you need him?).

Will Astro Boy avoid capture by the evil president?

Can he win the heart of Dr. Tenma?

Will he survive when he ends up on the surface of a polluted and poverty filled Earth?

Astro Boy provides all of the elements needed to create a super hero movie, but it lacks soul. The entire story of his origins, the establishment of a rival, the journey his life takes to make him realize his destiny and all the rest of it feels contrived and simplistic. Writer/director Davis Bowers and co-writer Timothy Harris (based on the comic by Osamu Tezuka) have created a villain who is too obviously and buffoonishly evil. They toss in a massive amount of comic relief that doesn't serve any purpose and create a few characters who seem to be calculated to sell toys instead of advancing the story or helping us understand Astro Boy's angst.

It's obvious Bowers and Harris are trying to create a movie for kids by including lots of silly slapstick, and they even try to weave in some "meaningful" lessons about pollution, a society that easily disposes its products and materials, and the battle between the Haves and the Have Nots (or the bourgeois and the working class, if you want to get fancy about it). However, none of it is substantial enough. Bowers would much rather thrown in a few more chase scenes and explosions to round out the movie than make us think.

Astro Boy has lots of violence and dizzying action scenes, so you'll have to think about whether or not very young kids should see it, even though the story is intended for them.

1 Waffle (Out of 4)
1 of 4 Waffles

Astro Boy is rated PG for some action and peril, and brief mild language.