A bold effort, but not bold enough.
Director David Bowers had a difficult task in turning Astro Boy into a feature film. Bowers has had to take an iconic Japanese story and keep it true enough to its roots to please its enormous Eastern fan base while also making it accessible to Western audiences, to whom the story has traditionally lacked widespread appeal. He has had to do this with a story that alternates between simplicity, complexity, seriousness, and fun. Surprisingly, in his finished product, Bowers hits all the notes he needs to. However, for the film to be good, he had to do more than just hit the notes; he had to hit them hard enough to make them resonate. That is something he was not able to pull off.
This Astro Boy story (the fifth major telling of it, including the original manga and three subsequent TV series) starts from the top. It takes place in a high-tech, floating city called Metro City, and it begins with the head of the Ministry of Science, Dr. Tenma, testing out a new power source while his son, Toby, tries to catch a peak at the experiment. When Metro City’s president (yes, the city has a president) interferes with the experiment, all goes awry, and Toby is killed. Dr. Tenma, unable to deal with the loss of his son, has a boy robot built in his likeness – a boy robot that is extremely strong, has jet boosters in his feet and canons in his arms (along with one other secret weapon that I won’t spoil), and is fully self-aware. Tenma eventually realizes that having a sentient android in the likeness of his deceased son is more distressing than having no reminder of his son whatsoever, and he abandons the robot (who later comes to be called Astro Boy). After spending some time at an orphanage below Metro City, Astro Boy comes to realize that, being the advanced and powerful robot that he is, his purpose in life is to save humans and robots from evil (evil humans and evil robots, that is).
There are a number of thematic elements in this story, including the issues of loss, abandonment, identity, and even robot rights. The inclusion of these elements is commendable not only because they are present in the original Astro Boy manga but because they add layers of importance to what otherwise would have been a simplistic children’s story. Many other directors, I think, would be afraid to do things such as kill off a young boy in a movie aimed mostly at kids, but Bowers recognizes the event as essential to the identity of Astro Boy. The idea of robot rights is also beyond what most directors would be willing to tackle in such a film, even on an elementary level. Bowers takes a risk with these things, evidently understanding that it is better to put something at stake than to try to please everyone by doing nothing daring.
However, Bowers seems ultimately to be unsure about the risks he takes and never fully follows through with them. Dr. Tenma is forced to deal with the loss of his only child, but it goes no farther than a few scenes in which he shows himself to be slightly sad. Astro Boy is forced to deal with being abandoned by who is, for all practical purposes, his father, but he quickly experiences great acceptance with the orphans who find him, and he seems perfectly content. The issue of identity and discovering oneself is present throughout roughly the middle third of the movie, but Astro Boy rarely seems to have difficulty accepting himself for what he is; what he worries about is what others will do if they find out that he is a robot. In fact, when he first discovers this truth about himself, his response is not remorse but excitement at the fact that he can do all these cool things that humans cannot. And the robot rights concept, while implicit throughout the film, is treated only humorously when confronted directly. These ideas were planted in the right places of the script, but the script never follows through with their implications.
Despite its serious concerns, the movie is overall lighthearted, which keeps it accessible to its primarily young target audience. During much of the movie, Astro Boy spends his time having fun, either flying around for the pure excitement of it or playing around with his new friends. There are also frequent bits of comedy, none of which are hilarious but many of which will at least offer a chuckle. At one point a soldier who attempted to capture Astro Boy is actually rescued by the robot and afterward declares, “I love you!” … and moments later jumps off a ledge out of fear. There are action scenes throughout the film as well, most of which consist of Astro Boy facing off against robots much larger and meaner than he is. None of these scenes are particularly dynamic or dramatic, but they do provide simple, lightweight breaks from the more serious moments. The movie always remembers that it has to be a fun experience, even as it tries to tackle relevant issues.
Bowers did well to include the elements that he did, but he didn't take the time to explore them. Though the film could have been saved by its humor and action, these more superficial aspects are given too little flair to entertain on their own. I would like to have gotten more of Dr. Tenma living with a fully sentient robot that resembles his son, more of Astro Boy coming to grips with the realization that he is not human, or more of the idea that self-aware robots deserve the same moral value as humans. What we have with this iteration of Astro Boy is a movie that seems too focused on bringing up the issues that it is supposed to and forgets to do something with them. For that, it remains an honest filmmaking effort that just doesn’t pan out.
Sci-Fi Movie Freak: a discussion of over one hundred of the most important sci-fi films of all time, written by Sci-Fi Block Editor in Chief Robert Ring. You will love this book. (Also, comes with a copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space!)
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