Day 26: We Can Rebuild Him

ASTRO BOY (2009)
Directed by David Bowers
Starring the voices of: Freddie Highmore, Nicholas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Kristin Bell, Nathan Lane

I've been doing a lot of Disney and Dreamworks stuff lately, so let's look at what other studios are doing.

From Imagi Studios in Hong Kong comes Astro Boy, based on the enormously popular Japanese comic book by Osamu Tezuka.  A sort of 21st Century Pinocchio story, it involves a young boy named Toby (Highmore) who is killed when he interferes during an experement by his father Dr. Tenma (Cage).  Heartbroken, Dr. Tenma and his mentor Dr. Elefan (Nighy) create a robot that looks exactly like Toby.  And with a bit of DNA, he has all of Toby's memories.  However, his power source is also sought after by President Stone (Sutherland) to power his new war machine, aptly titled The Peacemaker. 

But Robo-Toby isn't as studious or serious-minded has the Real Toby was.  Sure, he can fly, has x-ray eyes and super-strength, but he's just not as interested in math as he used to be.  As such, Dr. Tenma regrets creating him and essentially disowns him.  Now on the run and hunted by the government, he runs into a group of orphans in a run-down heap of broken robots.  They take him to the seemingly kind-hearted Hamegg (Lane), who rebuilds old robots like some people fix up old cars.  But, like Toby, he's not what he appears to be.

Astro Boy could have been great.  There are enough emotional elements in the story to build upon, and the animation a lot better than I was expecting from an animation studio I'd never heard of.  But one of the problems with the film is its failure to capitilize on the more emotional moments.  It talks when it should be silent.  It forces scenes to play out rather than just letting them happen.  It tries to use President Stone's character as an indictment of Bush-era foreign policy.  Which is fine, but this really isn't the arena for that sort of thing.  The voice acting is very sub-par, with many performers who had never done cartoons before.  The only exception is Nathan Lane, and even he doesn't seem to be very into it.  And you know something's wrong when you can't get a good performance out of Donald Sutherland.

The animation is actually quite good, though.  It's not up to Pixar or Dreamworks' standards, but it's a treat to look at.  It also mixes a variety of styles.  At the beginning, there is an instructional film on the use of robots in society.  Made to mirror the industrial films of the 50s and 60s, it's done in a very flat, cardboard cutout style.  It also has some great action sequences, which are really the film's biggest strengths. 

All the ingredients for a great film were there.  But because they weren't all utilized, we have merely a good film.  Or even, simply, an OK film.  It's could have been worse, but it could have been a whole lot better.