Review

Review Date: 25-October-09
Spoiler Rating: High
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Astro Boy (2009)

Astro Boy the character can zoom through the air with flame-shooting feet. Astro Boy the movie hovers between a decent family matinee and a missed opportunity for an animated gem. The story of a robot child spawned by tragedy, spurned by remorse, and reclaimed by finding his destiny, Astro Boy shows signs of taking flight but settles for staying on the ground.

The movie opens powerfully with a human boy named Toby (Freddie Highmore) being sacrificed to the preoccupation of his scientist father (Nicolas Cage) and the war-mongering of a corrupt politician (Donald Sutherland). (There are recurrent situations involving death, which prompts a caveat for those noting my description of Astro Boy as a family matinee.) After the scientist enlists the aid of a sympathetic colleague (Bill Nighy) to build a robot version of Toby whom he then rejects as a substitute, it appears that the movie will explore the conditions for love and the possibilities of overcoming grief either to achieve forgiveness or to move on. However, these tantalizing topics are put aside for more familiar fare.

Toby lives on an island floating in the sky above a planet that has been relegated to a trash heap. (Shades of WALL*E warn kids against pollution.) Robots, the island's labor force, are thrown down to the surface when they malfunction, and humans who do not fit into the island's ostensibly upstanding lifestyle also go there to (live and) die. It is only natural that Toby finds his way to the planet after his father rejects him and the politician starts hunting him for his energy source. He receives the name "Astro" from a comic trio calling itself the Robot Revolutionary Front (more shades of WALL*E) and falls in with a group of human orphans that includes a spunky girl (Kristen Bell) who becomes his chaste love interest. (Spunky girls, so refreshing a few years ago, are so boring now.) Can he tell his new friends he is a robot when they scorn machines as much as their oppressors in the sky? A more important question is whether he can trust the orphans' stand-in father (Nathan Lane), who seems friendly at first but is revealed to be the ringmaster of a robot gladiatorial show for which a souped-up child would make a thrilling contestant.

Faced with a future as an outcast or killer, Astro Boy seizes the opportunity to forge a third option: hero. Back on the island, the politician has created a robot monster whom only he can stop, so Astro Boy returns to the scene of his tragic birth. The reunion with his father is touching but abrupt, compared with which the loyalty of his pals from the planet seems trivial. Now accepted, he saves the day and expresses joy at finding a place in the world. He might have taken a deeper or more memorable trip, but one can still cheer the little dude for overcoming such unfortunate beginnings.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.