Superhero Media: Astro Boy (2009)

I would describe watching this film as "frustrating". Parts of Astro Boy are really well done and enjoyable, but other sections are frustrating and uninteresting, overall the film feels like a mash of half-measures and studio notes rather than a true adaptation. The core elements of the classic Astro Boy origin are there, Toby is the genius son of Doctor Tenma before he is killed in a tragic accident and Tenma builds a robot to replace him. Horrified by what he did in his grief, Tenma shuns the robot Toby, despite the advice of his friend Doctor Elefun, and "Astro" is forced to fend for himself. The pacing of Astro Boy is a little fast, with everything seeming to happen within a few minutes and little space to breathe; Tenma turns against Astro in a matter of minutes and then there's a chase sequence with police that ends with Astro being knocked off the city. Oh yeah, for some reason the story is set in "Metro City" a floating utopia that cruises over a post-apocalyptic Earth, rather than Tokyo or anywhere "real". 

Like Neo Yokio, the setting of Astro Boy is probably one of the more interesting aspects of the film, especially when any amount of critical thought is applied. If Metro City dump all of their waste on the surface, where do the new robots come from? There has to be conservation of mass somewhere. Also, the people living on the surface can rebuild and program complex robots, but can't manage aircraft that would enable them to get to Metro City? As I said above, the whole thing just fails to come together in any satisfying way. The fight scenes are fun, mostly thanks to the great animation, but the villain comes out of nowhere, using the "Red Core" to become an unsatisfying Kaiju for Astro to batter around for a bit before the fake-out death scene and the end of the film. 

Astro Boy is probably best seen as the version of "The Mighty Atom" to tempt new fans into the franchise. The film doesn't entice to the same level as the 1980s anime which I grew up with or even the 2000s version, which was inferior, but still fun. Astro Boy lacks any of the cleverness of the anime versions, or the more adult themes of segregation, social justice and profiling; seriously, there's an episode of the '80s anime that features a robot genocide, it's pretty full-on. Hopefully, the anime[s] will come to a streaming service sometime soon and I can give them another look-in, until then, this will have to do, some Astro Boy is better than none. Oh, and how come they didn't use the classic theme song, even over the end credits? Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.