Astro Boy review
Oct. 24th, 2009 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranI was surprised at how very non-anime (we'll pretend that's a word, too) the art style was. Aside from a couple shout-outs — for instance, one of Tenma's assistants is a dead ringer for Tezuka's author avatar — all characters not directly from the manga/anime series look like they could've been pulled from any recent animated CG film. The plot, too, felt very Generic Hollywood Kiddie Movie, particuarly in the second act where Astro joins up with a group of kids on the polluted surface of the Earth. Aside from the hilarious, "What? I have machine guns in my butt?" scene (I was totally not expecting that detail to make it to the big screen), there were very few surprises. And the lack of surprise is not due to overwhelming similarity with the source material, by the way. Dr. Tenma is made out to be a much more sympathetic figure, while Dr. Elefun is almost a non-entity whose presence feels awkwardly inserted into some scenes.
As I had feared, the voice acting was pretty bad, although it was not Nicholas Cage but Donald Sutherland (as the president) who was bad to the point where I started to dread seeing his character appear. I'm so sick of this trend that's developed the past few years with animated films, where they hire a bunch of big-name actors to do voices, not taking into account that voice acting is not the same thing as acting in a live action movie. Sometimes they don't even seem to really care whether the voice matches the character. And then, because they've hired all these big-name actors who have very busy schedules, they all record separately, which often leads to stilted-sounding conversations. This only compounds the problem that these actors are already (sometimes literally) just phoning it in. Robots was the worst example I've seen of this phenomenon—even Mel Brooks was terrible on that one—but Astro Boy is a close second.Geez, people, just because there are robots in the movie doesn't mean that you have to sound like them.
But the thing that bothered me the most was not the voice acting, nor the fact that the plot was so generic. No, it was a couple of scenes that show that the writers do not understand how the three laws of robotics work. A robot will not formulate a plan to physically injure a human being, be all ready to carry it out, and then consciously be like, "Oh, yeah, three laws of robotics. I forgot about those. Guess I shouldn't be breaking them." *facepalm* Those laws are suppposed to be HARD WIRED. A ROBOT SHOULD NOT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT. THEY ARE NOT SOME SORT OF LEGAL CODE. Read your freaking Asimov, doofuses.
That said, the film did have its moments. Once they got beyond the ridiculous red/blue energy stuff at the beginning, most of the first act was quite good. In particular, the scene where Astro figures out his rocket boots is wonderful. Also, the bit at the end with Zog was, while not unexpected (see: Generic Hollywood Kiddie Movie), a nice way of tying into an earlier scene.
Long story short: If you really want to see it, wait 'till the DVD release and rent it. It's not worth even the matinee price. And keep in mind that this is a very Hollywoodified version of Astro Boy. Yes, "Hollywoodified" is a word. Because I said so. That's why.
As I had feared, the voice acting was pretty bad, although it was not Nicholas Cage but Donald Sutherland (as the president) who was bad to the point where I started to dread seeing his character appear. I'm so sick of this trend that's developed the past few years with animated films, where they hire a bunch of big-name actors to do voices, not taking into account that voice acting is not the same thing as acting in a live action movie. Sometimes they don't even seem to really care whether the voice matches the character. And then, because they've hired all these big-name actors who have very busy schedules, they all record separately, which often leads to stilted-sounding conversations. This only compounds the problem that these actors are already (sometimes literally) just phoning it in. Robots was the worst example I've seen of this phenomenon—even Mel Brooks was terrible on that one—but Astro Boy is a close second.
But the thing that bothered me the most was not the voice acting, nor the fact that the plot was so generic. No, it was a couple of scenes that show that the writers do not understand how the three laws of robotics work. A robot will not formulate a plan to physically injure a human being, be all ready to carry it out, and then consciously be like, "Oh, yeah, three laws of robotics. I forgot about those. Guess I shouldn't be breaking them." *facepalm* Those laws are suppposed to be HARD WIRED. A ROBOT SHOULD NOT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT. THEY ARE NOT SOME SORT OF LEGAL CODE. Read your freaking Asimov, doofuses.
That said, the film did have its moments. Once they got beyond the ridiculous red/blue energy stuff at the beginning, most of the first act was quite good. In particular, the scene where Astro figures out his rocket boots is wonderful. Also, the bit at the end with Zog was, while not unexpected (see: Generic Hollywood Kiddie Movie), a nice way of tying into an earlier scene.
Long story short: If you really want to see it, wait 'till the DVD release and rent it. It's not worth even the matinee price. And keep in mind that this is a very Hollywoodified version of Astro Boy. Yes, "Hollywoodified" is a word. Because I said so. That's why.
