Astro Boy

Hollywood is not the only place where remakes are being made. The Japanese are now cashing in on their past successes to create new films.

I used to watch 'Astro Boy' when I was growing up. I don't think I loved it terribly as I can't remember much from it. It was just an enjoyable show I watched when I was younger. In some ways that is a good way to see the film as I don't have too many preconceived notions of what the film needs to be about. So it was a quite enjoyable film. Not the greatest but just a fun action film for younger people. I'm sure fans of the show will enjoy it. I don't know how faithful it is to the original story but I liked it for what it was. The only problem I had was Astro's birth. It's the same problem I had with Steven Spielberg's 'A.I.: Artificial Intelligence', and that is a parent replacing their dead child with a robot. I can not believe that a parent would do that. I know that grief is different for each person and they would do anything to bring the person they loved back to life, but making a robot version just seems kind of silly and ridiculous. I just can not believe it would happen. Invariably the parent comes to resent the robot child and wants to get rid of it, which seems even sillier to me. It is interesting how quickly Astro's father get rid of him in this film. I did like the background design of the film. You can really tell it is set in Japan.

There is quite a good voice cast assembled for the film. Freddie Highmore has not done much lately and he must look very grown up now. Luckily his voice has not broken yet so he can still play kids roles. Most of the other cast give nicely naturalistic performances that you did not see the actor doing the voice but rather the character. Except maybe Nicolas Cage. I normally like him but his voice to me did not suit his character. I found Eugene Levy really annoying too.

A good animated, action film for the kids but is fairly violent. But most of the violence is done to robots so it's not as bad.