This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

The character of Astro Boy has always been something of a Japanese national symbol (Astro Boy is for Japan what Mickey Mouse is for America), the allegorical phoenix that rose from the postwar ashes and saved itself through the application of technology. Astro Boy first flew into the world’s consciousness in 1951, courtesy of legendary animator Osamu Tezuka. Beginning as a manga (a Japanese comic book), Astro Boy combined metaphorical subterfuge with high-flying adventure to transform into one of the very first anime heroes. Sadly, the icon’s first big screen appearance is sure to be a let down for his long-time fans, too light for their sophisticated tastes and too dark for the simpler appetites of their children.

We open in Metro City, a floating metropolis lifted into the sky (along with a mountain that looks suspiciously like Mt. Fuji) by the sort of incredible technology that has also manufactured robots that wait on their biological masters hand and foot (the film is not shy in comparing the robots to slave labor). When the machines are no longer capable of carrying out their service, they are tossed overboard with the rest of the trash. (The surface of the Earth looks like something WALL*E would recognize.)

When the son (Freddie Highmore) of brilliant scientist Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage, who proves he is as bad a voice actor as he is a live action actor) is vaporized in an experiment gone awry, Tenma builds a robot that looks just like him but is also endowed with super strength, x-ray vision, incredible speed and the ability to fly: Astro Boy. But Tenma soon realizes that no robot will be able to replace his son and has Astro Boy discarded on the planet’s surface, a vast scrapheap of robotic zombies. Astro falls in with a group of feral human children (think Peter Pan’s Lost Boys) looked after by the Faginesque Ham Egg (Nathan Lane), who repairs the cybernetic undead only to throw them into gladiatorial games where they must fight to the death. And Astro, once Ham figures out the truth of the newcomer’s existence, is his biggest prize of all.

But the conniving President of Metro City, General Stone (Donald Sutherland), wants Astro Boy for himself or, more specifically, the energy core that fuels his incredible powers. Soon Astro is not just fighting for his own life, but the life of all those in Metro City and on the surface below.

While it duplicates some material from the original almost shot for shot (including burrowing through a volcano and a flight of fancy that would make Iron Man jealous), Astro Boy discards anything approaching the depth which the series embraced and replaces it with straightforward, simplistic jokes and recycled action. There are odd, discordant moments here that go well beyond the most obvious issues like the killing of kids in children’s cartoons, such as philosophical discussions involving Kant and Descartes; robots who seek emancipation through the teachings of Marx and Trotsky; the dangers of unprejudiced scientists forced to acquiesce to military bullying; and an antagonist clearly meant to resemble President George W. Bush, who flies around in a weapons-laden spacecraft named the Spirit of Freedom, barking orders about starting a preemptive war with the surface to boost his ailing polling points in the face of an upcoming reelection bid.

Like the villainous robot in the film that assimilates whatever hardware is around him to make himself stronger, so too does Astro Boy absorb other stories to bulk up its narrative. But the result is a clunky, leaky assemblage of spare parts. One can clearly see the ideas of Isaac Asimov and I, Robot; Pinocchio and Spielberg’s postmodern take on the tale A.I.; and another perennial Japanese favorite, Godzilla. There’s even a nice Transformers parody. With this sort of innovative pedigree, you’d think Astro Boy would feel more futuristically immersive than it does. Some of the adaptations work spectacularly well, though most fall spectacularly flat.

Parents who grew up with the original comic and television series may appreciate Astro’s crisis of identity, his search for acceptance, his struggle to discover his humanity and even his confrontation with an excruciating destiny. But the only thing the kids are going to walk away with is how cool it was when machine guns popped out of Astro’s posterior.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.