Astro Boy!

[stefanj]

I watched the original B&W Astro Boy 'toon back when I was a diaper-clad tot, during its first run on American TV. Loved it severely in the way that kids do.

A few years back, I read a little comic book collection of the early original "Mighty Atom" stories. Kind of re-stoked my interest, so when the CGI remake came around I thought I'd check it out.

Awkward Aside: I was the only adult not accompanied by wee kids. For some reason an awful lot of grandparents with grandkids were present. So I felt kind of freakish. This isn't like a Pixar film with adult crossover appear.

Anyway, this was actually enjoyable. It retells the story in the way that movie adaptations usually, do, but I don't think purists would be offended.

It is set on a utopian city floating above a trashed Earth. Robots loyally serve the carefree human populace. The lead character starts out as a bright young boy, Toby, whose dad is the city's premiere roboticist. He is killed by a military 'bot powered by an Evil Red energy source. Guilt-stricken dad recreates him in robotic form, powered by a Good Blue energy source. After a promising early start the new Toby is rejected when he doesn't meet up to dad's expectations. To make things worse, the city's conniving president wants to capture Toby so he can use the Good Blue energy source to power his military 'bot.

Toby ends up fleeing to the surface, where he meets up with a bunch of techno-trash collecting urchins and their jolly-seeming robot repairman guardian. Toby conceals his robotic nature in an attempt to get a new start.

I'll leave it at that. This is definitely not Pixar material, but it was surprisngly well done, with a little cheeky humor for the grownups and plenty of action. Worth a DVD rental.