by F-Man » Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:50 am
As an aside, all you fine folks rating the movie should go ahead and rank it along with other Tezuka films you've seen in . I just added some Phoenix movies to my own list but forgot about Astro Boy, oops! Next time then; I haven't even thought about where I'd rank it yet.
I don't know how to rank it out of 5 either. I thought the movie was very flawed with humour that often missed its mark, a general lack of subtlety and boring unnecessary new characters. But at the end of the day, it's still Astro Boy, a little boy robot flying around, shooting at a big bad guy, with more perilous situations than I expected.
It also helps a lot that they didn't shy away at genuinely sad moments (some from the manga/anime, some new), but I hated how they were always followed by comic relief that felt out of place. Disney once said that for every laugh there should be a tear. This movie flips it upside down and it's a forced comedic interaction for every tear instead. In fact the entire plot about the orphans seems to come out of fear that children in the audience would find it too horrifying to see Astro being rejected by his father, so they had to show orphans who are proud of being what they are and avoid any trauma.
This is still definitely one of those situations where I am more forgiving on account of being a fanboy. Sort of how I like the first Resident Evil movie and Resident Evil Degeneration, and all the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons.