Movie Review: Astro Boy

Astro Boy

PG for some action and peril and brief mild language.
Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

Astro Boy is an all-new animated feature film full of action and adventure! Astro Boy, voiced by Freddie Highmore, lives in futuristic Metro City. He’s a young robot with incredible powers created by a scientist named Dr. Tenma.

Just how powerful is Astro Boy?

He has super strength, x-ray vision, unbelievable speed and the ability to fly! Embarking on a journey in search of acceptance, Astro Boy encounters many other colorful characters along the way. Through his adventures he discovers the joys and emotions of being human. Along the way he also finds the strength to embrace his destiny.

An Appointment With Destiny

When Astro Boy discovers his friends and family are in danger, he must make a decision. Will he return to Metro City and use his super powers to save everything he cares about? Or, will he simply ignore what’s going on at home, and live life for himself?

Right out of the gate it’s worth noting that Astro Boy certainly has an impressive voice cast! Not only does Freddie Highmore provide the voice for Astro Boy, but Nicolas Cage lends his voice talent for Tenma the scientist. Other voices of note include – Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Nathan Lane and Eugene Levy. It’s quite obvious with such a voice cast that the producers of Astro Boy not only wanted to tap into the family audience, but they also wanted to capture the imagination of parents by using big name actors with recognizable voices.

There are many lessons to be gleaned from Astro Boy. It’s a story about family, it’s a story about friendship, it’s a story about standing up for what’s right, and most importantly, it’s a story about destiny. The message of destiny is emphasized throughout the movie as we see Astro Boy trying to figure out who he really is. He’s searching for meaning in his life. He’s searching for the destiny spoken over his life. In the midst of upheaval, Astro Boy holds onto the word destiny as he tries to fit in.

Is he a boy? Is he a robot? Is a friend? Is he a hero?

In the midst of his search, we see Astro Boy mingling with others trying to figure out who he is. While many times movies aimed at kids can be cruel when it comes to answering the destiny question, Astro Boy, for the most part, finds helpful people along the way. Not only do we see his search for destiny, but we in turn see other characters in the movie trying to find their place in the world too.

Then, in the midst of some great lessons for kids, we also discover a few lessons for adults too. One main theme revolves around the importance of spending time with your kids. You will never get lost time back. We see this lesson amplified as Dr. Tenma discovers that even though Toby/Astro Boy is a brilliant son, he hasn’t spent the time he should have with him. When something tragic happens, Tenma devises a plan to recapture lost time. However, in the midst of recapturing lost time, both Tenma and Astro Boy find themselves in the midst of confusion.

Action Keeps Your Attention

One thing is for sure, Astro Boy has lots of action to keep not only kids engaged, but adults engaged too. Filmmakers of animated movies sometimes struggle in finding a balance between too much adventure, not enough adventure, or jarring scene changes which do little more than confuse the audience.

Such is not the case with Astro Boy!

There’s a nice balance here between adventure vs. scenes where we can catch our breath. But, not only is the action good, it doesn’t seem over-done. While I must admit the “I’ve got machine guns in my butt” may be a little over the top, for the most part, it’s your typical Saturday morning cartoon type adventure material.

Another nice aspect of the adventure revolves around the fact that it’s not just kids adventure. As already mentioned, there’s enough going on in this movie to keep both kids and adults engaged. There’s action with kid characters and action with adult characters. Once again, we also applaud the filmmakers because they’ve found a nice balance between the two age groups, without stooping to potty humor.

As far as rating goes…
We are calling Astro Boy family-friendly for the rating.

Remember, this is a PG movie. It’s not meant for the really young. But, even after saying that, it’s not to say the 5 to 10 crowd would be overly frightened from anything going on with the movie. The flick clocks in at a little over an hour and a half. It’s just the right length for kids not to get bored. Of course the action and the fact that the storyline moves along well and quickly means kids shouldn’t get bored.

Enjoy the show!
Dr. Rus