Santikos Cine-opsis

“Astro Boy” has been a fixture in the comic world for over half a century.  I read that on the info slate for the “Astro Boy” movie because I had no idea what  the heck “Astro Boy” was when I first heard about it.  I thought it was a current cartoon adapted into a big screen blockbuster, a la “Avatar.” (actually, I thought it was a giant statue often seen on top of old-fashioned pancake houses that Dr. Evil used as a secret base, but I digress).

As it turns out, “Astro Boy” has a long history both in the U.S. and in Japan will doubtlessly have eager fans of all ages jetting for tickets when it opens this Friday.  I borrowed my friend’s two little Astro Boys (both entering their tweens…the perfect Astro Boy demographic) and sat down for what I thought would be an entertaining flick about a robot kid fighting evil.

Then, Nicolas Cage ruined my afternoon.

Cage plays the voice of “Dr. Tenma,” the head of robotics for Metro City and the father of a bright but rambunctious son named Toby (Freddy Highmore).  When Tenma blows off a father/son trip with Toby to unveil a new robot weapon system for obviously evil president Stone (played by Donald Sutherland, as over the top as he can…which turns out to be slightly more animated than Ben Stein), Toby hot-wires his robot chauffeur and books it over to the unveiling.  That turns out to be a fatal decision, because the robot goes haywire and vaporizes Toby in a giant explosion.

This also turns out to be a fatal decision for the movie, because it forces Nic Cage to try and convey emotion through his voice.  “Where is my son?”, Tenma boringly inquires as he surveys the wreckage of both his work and family life.  He then decides emotionlessly to recreate his son as a robot, and thus, Astro Boy is born.

The film lags again when his dad decides to home school his robot son rather than subject him to the questions of the schoolyard (like “Hey! Weren’t you dead?).  Yay!  More Dr. Tenma!  After sighingly sending Toby to his room for making recreations of Da Vinci’s flying machines out of his precious books, Tenma lazily confesses to fellow scientist (and superior character actor) Dr. Elefun (Bill Nighy) that he doesn’t love his new creation.  When Toby overhears, Tenma tells him to go away with all of the fury of paint drying on wet noodles.

All of this occurs in the first 20 minutes of the film, but it’s enough to really sour the early moments of “Astro Boy.”  The film is ultimately ruined by Cage at the end when his character faces a pivotal decision.  It’s amazing how a bad voiceover can make an animated character seem so lifeless.

But even if Cage were recast, “Astro Boy” still has some serious manufacturing defects.  In the beginning of the film, we are told that Metro City was created when scientists lifted a giant chunk of land into the atmosphere to escape a world destroyed by the environment.  They used robot helpers to make life easy and then discarded them back on the surface.  How very “Wall-e” of you, “Astro Boy.”  There are plenty of other scenes lifted from other movies like “Iron Man,” “Shrek,” and other, more innovative films, but I’ll avoid giving away any more spoilers by listing them in detail.  Let’s just say that there’s nothing new in “Astro Boy,” which is a shame, because the premise had a lot of potential.

And while my test audience initially enjoyed the film when initially asked about it after the screening, about 10 minutes later they admitted to me that “it was ok” but they would have preferred to see “Where the Wild Things Are.”

That makes three of us.

(Expect a “WTWTA” review later in the week.  Or “Zombieland,” which I’m officially the last critic in the world to see)