ComedyFan2010 I don't know anything about the original Astro Boy so my review can't compare and see if it is any worse or improved.I did like the movie The animation was absolutely beautiful. I like the style in which it was done, almost reminds one of older animation movies but still of high quality.The story is pretty interesting. It is a great introduction of the kid into the sci fi world. It has a bit of dystopia, robots, the wondering if robots can feel. For an adult watching it with a kid it is also entertaining. The robots used as gladiators and the fight scenes were pretty fun.

SnoopyStyle Toby Tenma is a boy living in the futuristic floating citystate Metro City. It's a world of robots spearheaded by Toby's often-absent father Dr. Tenma, the famous roboticist head of the Ministry of Science. Toby is smart, overconfident and inquisitive. Dr. Elefun discovers a new power source from space called the Blue Core. By developing it, its opposite of chaotic violent energy Red Core is created. Dr. Tenma's weapons test get hijacked by incompetent leader President Stone who installs the Red Core. Toby sneaks in and gets killed by the military robot the Peacekeeper. Suffering from grief, Dr. Tenma creates a robot replacement with Toby's memories and the Blue Core. However he doesn't live up to expectations and Tenma rejects him. President Stone tries to recover the Blue Core but Astro Boy tumbles off the city onto the surface. He finds discarded robots and a bunch of orphans led by Cora and adult Hamegg who thinks that Astro is actually a boy. Hamegg accidentally scans Astro and realizes that he's a robot. Hamegg forces Astro to fight in gladiator bouts with other robots.The biggest problem is that the movie introduces the boy and then kills him off 10 minutes later. They should make Toby a memory instead. This should be only about Astro Boy anyways. Also killing off a boy is something I wouldn't do in a kiddie movie. It's a real bummer. The story owes a lot to Pinocchio and feels unoriginal because of it. The animation is colorful and fun. I'm sure kids could enjoy the energetic visuals. Once Astro Boy gets on the surface, the movie is fine. However this does feel schizophrenic with one part kiddie movie and the other part something more serious.

Nano Maciá I did not see "Astroboy" old animated TV series. So, I had no idea before seeing this film together with my 5 years old son. Although he liked it, I was really disappointed. In "Astroboy", a father first raises his son as a robot, but at that time he is never present (see scene with the dialog between the child and a hologram of his father within the car). Later, once the child dies, the father raises a robot trying to get a child instead. A detestable idea. But he persists in raising something not as a child, giving him books totally inadequate for a child. The story is plagued of scenes of torture on a child: Toby confined in a jail with no windows; Toby suffering explosions of missiles on him; Toby rejected by Dr. Tenma, his father, with rude, direct words; Toby have to fight with an iron monster... and so on. What about the children on the surface? (the third world?)(SPOILER) When Cora finally find her parents, they just say "where were you?" That's all? What is the concept of family or parenthood for the director/writer? In some part, the "revolutionary" robots from the surface tease on the Asimov's laws on robotics. It was very offensive for a talented author as Asimov and their readers as me. Even the pathetic characters of these robots (what they say and how they look) seems a contempt for any revolution. For me, reconciliation between Astroboy and Dr. Temna was a sad ending, not a happy ending. But I could find a positive point in the story: only other children were able to find a human being in a robot seeming a child, not the adults. At less something with hope! (SPOILER) Finally, there are a lot of things too similar to other films: mountains of discharged items from civilization as in "WallE", the very ending with an unexpected alien as in "The Incredibles", the entire process of creation of Astro as in "Frankenstein", the design of the army as in "Star Wars", many resemblances with "The Iron Giant"… Too many coincidences. Good animation technique in fact. But digital animation is not enough to make a good film.

dunmore_ego The points in his hair are as iconic as Mickey Mouse's ears; they exist in their own reality, where they are always seen, no matter the angle of his head! It's ASTRO BOY, Osamu Tezuka's manga creation from the 1950s. Cartooned in the 1960s in Japan, then re-cartooned in the '80s (remember those cute cartoons with his big pointy head and bigger eyes, where they couldn't even synch the "Oouah!" exclamation - over a mouth position that looked like "Oouah!"?); now re-rendered in CG animation - where Astro's spikes must necessarily migrate from one side of his head to the other in different shots so we can still always see them. (These things affect me; what can I say?) The cartoon was cuter because his head was bigger. Still, ASTRO BOY has a lot of heart; it's an adult cartoon clothed in tiny metal undies and yeti boots.Young Brit Freddie Highmore voices the 2009 Astro, speaking with an American accent - but isn't Astro (aka "Tetsuwan Atomu," "Iron Arm Atom") Japanese? He was styled like a 10-year-old boy in the cartoons, but here, Astro is definitely at an older age of latent lust, so that he can tent his metal undies in the direction of tween Cora (voiced by Kristen Bell, whose spinner blondness surely deserves tenting ovations, if it weren't for Astro being a robot whose man-apparatus, we suspect, is non-existent). Onward...Like a junior version of FRANKENSTEIN meets PET SEMATARY, Astro starts as a human boy named Toby, who is disintegrated in a lab experiment. Very gruesome. In the throes of despair, Toby's scientist father, Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) recreates his son as a robot, implanting all Toby's memories and breathing life into his creation with an inexplicable "blue energy life force." Tenma ultimately rejects the robot boy for reminding him of his lost son (uh, I thought that was the idea) in a sad scene, that also raises questions about artificial intelligence.How do we discern between true emotion and "programmed" emotion? Toby loves Tenma as a father because Tenma programmed Toby that way. Though aren't we all "programmed" from youth with principles, fears, insecurities, and a love for yeti boots? What is "love" from a child toward its parents except devotion/gratitude for sustenance and protection? But Tenma wants "real love" from the young automaton - whatever that is - not programmed love.The themes are deep, and rife for endless discussion, over resurrection (for Christies), anatta (for Buddhies), soul transmigration (for Hindies) and katra (for Vulcans).But to keep it light (for kiddies), light up those yeti boots and let's punch some evil robots! Astro lives on Metro City, floating above Earth, the Metro government dumping their garbage on Earth's surface. After discovering his super powers (flight, super strength, power rays - and butt guns! Now I get it: Ass-tro Boy!), a chase scene leaves Astro stranded and an exile on Earth's surface, where he meets Cora and her outlaw gang of kids - and a dog-bot named Trashcan who reminds us of R2-D2. As Astro must go through adversity trying to regain his home and father, movie takes on shades of Pinocchio. Ironically, Astro also gets wood for Cora.Bill Nighy voices big-nosed Dr. Elephun; Eugene Levy is a stooping, flustered butler robot; Nathan Lane is Hamegg, the robot-gladiator pimp, who looks exactly like Nathan Lane.Matt Lucas (LITTLE Britain) is Sparx, heading a trio of British robots (The Robot Revolutionary Front) who have been watching too much Python. Very interesting that the robots of this world are acquainted with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.Donald Sutherland is the evil president of Metro City, whose campaign slogan is, "It's Not Time For Change" (obviously styled after John Boehner), who is subsumed by the giant evil robot whose life force is the "red energy." (Get it? Blue, good, democrats; red, evil, Republicans.)Astro proves his worth as an all-round effeminate nice guy by battling robots and doing good deeds (he even holds up the whole of Metro City, which makes him pretty much as strong as Superman), but this movie's mettle is revealed when Astro is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice - and he never flinches - as he goes Shirtless Kirk in his death plunge into the heart of the evil Republican robot. The mark of a true hero, the likes of which senile coward John McCain could never fathom.Even though everyone treats Astro like a unique creation, his father should have Astro's master files somewhere, so if Astro "dies" it should not be too much of a task to download another Toby robot. At least, not as hard as getting a Republican to stop lying. And the "blue energy" that makes Astro kind and strong and metrosexual is also merely a matter of technology. (Astro's sacrifice is diluted if we realize this, so they treat him as a one-off, almost as if he has become a Real Boy at the climax... cough--Pinocchio--cough.) Movie trips over its feet when Tenma reconciles with Astro at the end, "You may not be Toby, but you're still my son." Shouldn't that be "You may not be my son" (they are not bound in blood) "but you're still Toby" (Toby's programs are swirling Astro's master processing unit)? Who's laughing now, Carlo Collodi?