Astro Boy Review

Astro Boy is based on the critically acclaimed manga series by Ozamu Tezuka and starring Freddie Highmore as Toby, the son of scientist Dr Tenma (Nicholas Cage) who after a horrifying accident is reborn as Astro Boy. However when Tenma rejects his robotic son, Astro soon finds himself on the run from the leader of the floating Metro City, President Stone (Donald Sutherland) who is after the blue energy core which powers Astro, forcing him down to the junk filled surface of earth where he meets an array of colourful characters.

I was somewhat sceptical about this film, I had concerns that this would be some diluted Hollywood version of Astro Boy with little of the original story remaining intact (much like Dragonball Evolution). However Astro Boy's journey through the film is quite faithful to the manga series without being a straight adaptation. The concepts that Tezuka had for Astro Boy (someone who would fight for both humans and robots) is still an integral part of the film though it isn't until later on in the film that the human/robot equality themes become an apparent theme for the film.

There is a great sense of awe when Astro Boy discovers that he has the ability to fly, it's a moment of joy and confusion for him, mainly joy and those scenes are quite upbeat. The tone becomes more humorous when he discovers that he has weapons including an extremely strange place to place machine guns.

There are some clever homage's in this film, from Frankenstein to even Lassie the final battle between Astro and President Stone's Peacemaker felt similar to the final battle between Iron Man and Iron Monger in the Iron Man film. The Pinocchio vibe this film could have had (Astro trying to be a real boy for Dr Tenma) was surprisingly played down , instead it was more of a case of hiding who he was from his earth friends which included inventor/repairer Haemegg (Nathan Lane) and Cora (Kristen Bell).

Beautifully rendered to look almost like Ozamu Tezuka's style, Astro Boy is a fun film for everyone. There are some moments which may gloss over young cinema-goers but with characters that are fun and varied there isn't a moment in the film where you feel lost or that the film is too childish.

The seven films I really can't wait to see this year that haven't been released yet

Dragonball Evolution: Based on Akira Toriyama's 42 volumed manga series Dragonball, which was the first manga series I read, the characters don't look quite right but from the stuff I've seen from trailers it looks quite good and has the feel of the manga to it.
Iron Maiden: Flight 666:A documentary on Maiden's latest World Tour, hopefully there'll be a few full live tracks within the documentary, though its only on for one night only it may be easier to catch it on DVD but how could you pass on the opportunity to see one of the biggest metal bands on the big screen.
Star Trek: I'm not that much of a trekkie anymore and I wasn't that big of a fan of the original series but I'm interested in seeing what J.J. Abrams has done with the film.
Terminator: Salvation: I'm liking this take of the Terminator franchise, it's nice to see that despite that all was done, the future that everyone tried to prevent, happened.
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen: There looks like theres alot going on in this film with bigger villains and more explosions than all of Michael Bay's films put together, it'll definetly be the film of the summer.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Don't really remembering seeing this as a kid but it looks good, since I don't remember seeing it I have a feeling I won't have a high expectation of this.
Astro Boy: Another manga adaptation this time done in CGI Animation, while the animation does look rather Americanised, Astro Boy himself looks closely to the way he was drawn by Osamu Tezuka, while it is animation it'll be aimed at kids but I'll be going because I really like the story Tezuka crafted