You’ve seen the cartoons.  You’ve played the games.  You’ve seen the trailer.  Yes, the posterior cannons make it into the new Astro Boy movie!

Brilliant (and partly-reckless) dude gets into an “accident.”  He is rebuilt using technology.  His chest now has a blue glowy thing.  He uses his new-found powers to help mankind.  Wait, scrap that.  That sounds like the plot to Iron Man!  Think about it!

Now that we have that out of the way, Astro Boy *is* a pretty lighthearted way of telling the Iron Man story — it may not keep all the original plot points from the manga and various animé retelling, but it still has the spirit.

When Dr. Tenma’s son, Toby “disappeared” (killed off) during a military testing at the Ministry of Science in the floating city of Metro, he wastes no time (literally, like, a scene after Toby dies) to recreate him using technology.  (instead of grieving, he tries to rebuild his boy harder.better.faster.stronger)  Being head of the Ministry of Science does help in these sort of things, I guess — utilizing military tech, and a mysterious blue core — a “purely positive” source of energy, he creates a robot with the memories of his son who has passed away.

At first it was as if Toby had never left — terrorizing the robot butler, acing home-schooled rocket science physics, and adding mischief to philosophy lessons — but Tenma feels different.  Philosophical questions are raised — can a robot with a human’s memories REPLACE that human?  Tenma decides no, and as Toby 2.0 is learning of his abilities, he is discarded, much like a broken robot in metro city.

Which makes for an interesting turn, feeling abandoned, “Toby” finds himself on the surface, along with discarded robots from the past — this is where he meets the Robot Revolutionary Force (Viva La Robolution!), Cora and the kids, and several familiar names from Astro Boy’s history.

Will “Toby” ever find his place?  Will the surface-dwellers (the ones who didn’t make it to Metro City standards) accept him for what he is?  Will he face some Human-Robot discrimination?  And what of the military, and the plans to retrieve the powerful core that allows him to live?

The movie moves at a fast, fast pace.  Clocking in at about 90 minutes, it seems as if we’ve seen Toby’s/Astro Boy’s rise, fall and eventual get-back-up.  The only thing about this pace is, as mentioned above, the disappearance (death) of Toby skipping immediately to the scene where Astro is built.  There’s nothing in-between — do scientists grieve like this?  Given Nicolas Cage’s stoic voice doesn’t help either, and we fail to sympathize with what he wanted to do in the first place.

A big concern after seeing the trailers was Astro Boy’s proportions.  He’s always been known to be short with gigantic rounded head/boots/arms.  He’s still like that.  There’s this fantastic respect for Tezuka’s original designs — there’s no anatomically-correct characters here!  Astro Boy has a giant head, Dr. Elefun’s nose is still … bulbous, and so on.

Astro Boy’s proportions don’t appear obvious when he’s clothed, but he still retains the “tiny dynamo” figure.  He’s been aged, however, to 13.  Which isn’t so bad, really — and I think Freddie Highmore’s voice sort-of cracks every once in a while, suggestive of a boy who’s going through puberty.  Some voice actors to watch out for — Eugene Levy, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Nighy.

The characters from the original manga/animé make their way into the new movie, but you may not recognize them — although you may find that the robots from the R.R.F., ZOG and trash can all vie for your choice as the most endearing supporting characters.  :)

There’s tons of fun gags all through the movie, which is really nice — it keeps the movie from getting a bit too dark.  This is a kid’s movie … with tough choices.  If you could, would you rebuild a lost loved one?  If you’re a robot, and you have the memories of a human, are you human … or robot?

Which puts my faith firmly in IMAGI that they’ll treat Gatchaman with the same respect.  Posterior cannons!

4/5!

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A special thanks to TV5 / 5MAX Movies, Stanley Chi’s Astro Boy hairhat, Dimetapp for the … Dimetapp, Azrael and Myk for the invites, woohoo!

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Also there was Mike Unson and Stanley Chi of Front Act!  Watch Front Act — Sunday, 6 PM Only on TV5!