'Astro Boy' Reviews

David Bowers' adaptation of anime pioneer Osamu Tezuka's 'Astro Boy' is splitting critics down the middle. While some praise the film's kid-friendly themes and action sequences, others have been less than enthralled by the animation style and plot.

When top government scientist Dr. Tenma (voiced by Nicolas Cage, with additional voices by Donald Sutherland, Kristen Bell and Eugene Levy) loses his son in a experiment gone awry, he pulls a Dr. Frankenstein and recreates his child in robot form. Upon finding out he is not human, Astro Boy flees Metro City for the garbage-infested dump known as Earth, where he must battle robots, fit in with humans and, eventually, make his way back home. A roundup of critical reviews below:

Roger Ebert: "Has market research discovered our children are all laboring with attention deficits and can only absorb so many story elements before brightly colored objects distract them with deafening combat? Still, 'Astro Boy' is better than most of its recent competitors, such as 'Monsters vs. Aliens' and 'Kung Fu Panda.'"

NY Times: "The story's undertow of darkness pulls you in one direction, while Astro Boy's insistent cheerfulness, which seems more commercially motivated than personality-driven, pulls you somewhere else. This jaggedness extends to the visual design, which at times intriguingly recalls the flat, graphic style of the 1950s, yet also often looks thinly conceived, sketchy, even cheap."

LA Times: "The soft colors and shiny surfaces help mitigate a story that's at its best when it lets its images do the talking."

USA Today: "This CG-animated adaptation of the Japanese comic classic feels derivative but moderately entertaining, particularly in some of the highflying visuals ... The action sequences trump the story and its flashes of comedy."



Chicago Tribune: "The animation style relies on watery pastel variations on the 'Metropolis' cityscapes, with forgettable robot designs seemingly yanked off the storyboards for the forgettable recent feature 'Robots.'"

Entertainment Weekly: "The new 'Astro Boy' is a marvelously designed piece of cartoon kinetics, with the pleasing soft colors and rounded-metal tactility of an atomic- age daydream."

Boston Globe: "'Astro Boy' alternately soars and sputters through a story line that's not quite sure who it's aimed at ... The computer animation, rendered by the Hong Kong-based Imagi Animation, has a pleasing pastel simplicity that sometimes looks iconic and other times just cheap."

Hollywood Reporter: "The iconic Japanese hero manages to keep his innate lovability intact in a visually dynamic if overly eager-to-please family feature cobbled together with parts reclaimed from various animated classics. Although the social-political allegorical elements could have benefited from a slyer, less obvious touch, an energetic voice cast headed by Freddie Highmore and Nicolas Cage ultimately saves the day."

Variety: "While 'Astro Boy' is hardly the equal of [similar-minded films 'Wall-E', 'The Iron Giant' and 'Pinocchio'], it's nonetheless a cut above this year's thematically and aesthetically similar 'Monsters vs. Aliens', displaying flashes of intelligence and a relaxed pace that should please parents who stumbled out of the latter nursing stroboscopically induced migraines ... Animation is topnotch yet stylistically inconsistent, veering from bubbly and Wii-like to photorealistic from scene to scene."

Time Out New York: "What's ultimately more impressive than the vigorous madcap action and innocuous humor, however, is Bowers's willingness to address adult themes -- alienation, regret, class tensions -- with a directness that shows a surprising respect for his target young-adult audience."

L.A. Weekly: "Corny but goodhearted, the film tries hard not to annoy parents, with animation more fizzy than frantic and nerdy references to Asimov's law of robotics, Kant and 'Freaks': 'One of us, one of us!'"

Washington Post: "As for the film's look, the CGI animation shares the same Mr. Potato Head level of facial expression and stiff-limbed locomotion as 'Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.'"

The Onion: "Tezuka was fantastically prolific over the course of his much-celebrated life; amid all his stories, surely they could have located one that was better than their insulting re-imagining."