Everything is so Much Better with Robots

Well, this was bound to happen. With Hollywood churning out retreads of old childhood staples, an Astro Boy film was only biding its time until splattering across silver screens. For the unaware, Astro Boy is a Japanese manga series published first in 1952, with a television series coming out in 1963. It was the first television show to be drawn in what we now call the "anime" style, spawning an entire genre of television shows and movies.

Speaking as somebody who has never read the manga or seen the show, I can't point out the fact that the titular character's underpants are the wrong color or his hair isn't pointy enough. So if you're looking for the rant of a jilted fan, you're in the wrong place. I can, however, discuss Astro Boy's merits as a film.

And generally, Astro Boy accomplishes what it sets out to do. The visuals are bowel-evacuatingly awesome, with simple character designs and bright colors. Epic battles in the sky give off the feeling that you're right there with Astro Boy, and I recall having several sympathy cringes for the main character's physical pains throughout the movie. The many robots that appear throughout the film are all unique and creative in design, though this should go without saying - Japan is the home of giant robots.

The plot is simple enough to not trip over its own feet, allowing for high-flying adventures and silly kid jokes to make up the backbone of the film. Toby Tenma is the son of famous scientist Dr. Tenma. When a robotics demonstration goes bad thanks to the meddling of the power-hungry President Stone, Toby is killed, leaving Dr. Tenma to blame himself for the accident.

The scientist becomes obsessed with replacing his son, and so builds a robot in his likeness. While he's successful, Dr. Tenma refuses to accept the robot as his Toby, leaving the boy to wander the flying Metro City. Robot-Toby eventually falls to the junky surface world, where he meets a troupe of misfit orphans that embark on merry adventures involving old pizza and a trash can that acts like a dog. Eventually, Robot-Toby must fight to save a city that rejected him, and everybody learns a lesson about friendship, togetherness, and acceptance.

To me, Astro Boy had two major flaws. The first is that it's too freaking busy. There's a lot going on in this movie, which clocks in at a brief 94 minutes. Now I understand not wanting to keep children in the theater for too long, but you need to make some plot concessions to keep things from getting cluttered.

And "cluttered" is a good word for Astro Boy. It jumps between the two major plots - Robot-Toby's quest for acceptance and President Stone's fiendish schemes - very abruptly, with random scenes of comic relief thrown in. The movie was fairly slow to start, with a lot of languid scenes of Dr. Tenma looking sadly at things that only proved that Nicholas Cage is stiff and awkward even in CGI form. Many precious minutes could have been shaved from those clumsy scenes and given to scenes that needed them more.

The pacing jumped out to me immediately, but my second complaint didn't hit me until a few hours after I had finished the movie. Throughout the film, there's a competition between good "blue matter" - the energy that powers Robot-Toby - and the bad "red matter" - the energy that President Stone wants to harness to start a war so he can get re-elected. Now children obviously won't make this connection, but when I had the time to think about it, it was a pretty heavy-handed representation of American politics.

Now I understand that political messages are all the rage, but was this really necessary? There were many scenes of President Stone plotting his re-election, going on at length about how starting a war will win him the vote. Seriously? The movie stopped just short of saying that Democrats are pure-hearted warriors that exist to fight the scourge of the horrible baby-eating Republicans. It has no place in a kid's movie about a robot boy with machine guns in his butt.

I could lodge more complaints, like the random storyline with the main female character and her parents that felt pointlessly rushed or the fact that all the adult characters were either blackhearted jerks or ineffective sissies. But really, there isn't any point in whining, because all these imperfections don't make Astro Boy a bad movie. Despite the schizophrenic pacing, self-important political message, and little quibbles, it's a fun film. The visuals make up for a lot of its imperfections, and the titular character is likable enough to carry most of the movie's weight.

So despite all my complaints, I would recommend Astro Boy. It's colorful, cute, and will definitely keep most anybody entertained for ninety minutes. It isn't shockingly original, but what it works with it does well: little boy needs to find a place in the world and ends up doing so by beating up giant robots. You don't have to be eight years old to appreciate that.