Robutt story

In the new computer-animated feature version of Astro Boy, a boy named Toby (voiced in an American accent by English actor Freddie Highmore) dies and is brought back to life as a robot-boy by his distraught father Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage).

Based on the popular Japanese manga series Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu) debuted in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka and which went on to become a televised anime series in the early 1960s, this latest version only loosely follows the original manga story line.

Toby/Astro Boy is rejected by his father shortly after his resurrection as a robot boy. He leaves his home of Metro City—an idyllic island floating above a wrecked, WALL-E-like Earth—to try to find his purpose for living. He heads down to Earth where he meets a band of clichéd “lost kids,” a trio of revolutionary robots, and a fat man named Hamegg (Nathan Lane) who restores old robots for a robotic version of cock fighting.

Astro Boy is often very entertaining. The action-packed fight scene near the end of the movie in which the ultra-strong robot boy (powered by the “good” blue light) zooms through a futuristic urban landscape fighting a giant militaristic robot (powered by the “bad” red light) with everything he’s got—jet-powered feet, powerful arm cannons and machine guns that pop out of his butt—is the stuff of an 8-year-old boy’s fantasy world (or that of an adult’s inner 8-year-old).

But the bottom line is that this version of Astro Boy is dumbed-down seemingly for an audience expecting to be entertained with the sort of stupid one-liners that serve as plot glue in so many contemporary animated films (this movie has its fair share) and no need for the story to make sense on a deeper level. There is, for instance, no development of the plot that allows a proper understanding of why Tenma rejects his son.

My report card: A for action, C- for script.