Screenhead

Watching Astro Boy, the mostly new remake of the original anime / manga, was a lot like using a new version of Windows for the first time.  It’s got a whole lot of fancy bells and whstles, and it’s downright charming in some senses, but it’s also got a whole lot of serious problems that get in the way of realizing its full capability.

The plotline is where most of these problems crop up.  When young Toby Tenma, an unaccountably brilliant lad who’s so hated by his classmates that they’re throwing things at him when he leaves a room, is accidentally killed by a new military robot, his grieving father (who, just incidentally, happens to be the father of modern robotics as well) decides that he’s going to build a replacement son.

Naturally, it’s not long before what he has a “what hath science wrought??” moment and figures it’s for the best to just shut the boy down.  But after the Toby-robot, later called Astro Boy, escapes and makes his way to the wreckage outside the town (actually BENEATH the town if you want to be specific) he briefly grew up in, he discovers that most everything and most everybody serves some purpose in life…even those things that were formerly unwanted.

Let’s get the problems out of the way first.  The plot has so many holes in it it’s a wonder how it manages to stay in one piece.  Enormous segments of events will be left utterly unexplained.

For instance: if the surface dwellers could just fly up to Metro City in any old hovercar, as they’re shown doing in the end, why didn’t they just pack up a few dozen busloads and take back the town themselves?  And while I’m at it, how did Cora manage to leave Metro City in the first place?  Don’t even get me started on why the Peacemaker robot, which is clearly absorbing EVERYTHING IN SIGHT when we first see it, up to and including the barrier in front of it, suddenly becomes SELECTIVE about his absorption capabilities in the final minutes.  He could’ve absorbed the entire city at the rate he was going.  And where did that ALIEN come from in the last thirty seconds?  Seriously?  Can we get a few BIGGER plotholes?  It’s almost blocking daylight at this point!

But.

But…Astro Boy is, let’s face it, a charming little romp with a hyperkinetic boy robot that features lots of high-speed action and sufficient gunfire to keep any anime or action buff occupied.  The only bad things that happen in the end are to the people who deserve them.  The ending could not be much happier.  They will even SAY as much IN THE FILM ITSELF.  You can’t telegraph a punch any more clearly than this one was.

The Screenhead Ten Scale likes a feel-good movie you can’t help but feel good about, but at the same time realizes that this dog will NOT hunt in terms of plot, and thus hands it a thoroughly mixed-bag five out of ten.

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