Astro Boy is Better Than You’re Being Told

In which, as often happens, I’m right and everyone else is wrong.

It sometimes seems that reading movie reviews is my primary online activity—I read Roger Ebert religiously and, nearly always, the Salon and Slate reviews of whatever is current. Then I troll metacritic, and look up New Yorker and New York Times reviews—I know, it’s obsessive. And I see a lot of movies, too, but even selfish, irresponsible, self-employed people can’t see everything so I actually rely on reviews when making decisions about what to see.

So I wasn’t expecting much—a pleasant diversion, no more—when I went, by myself and suitably prepared, to see Astro Boy yesterday afternoon. Even the best reviews were the equivalent of Ebert’s three-of-four stars, and there were plenty of ‘metacritic 50s’. Put another way, no one was really panning Astro Boy, but lots of people were damning it with faint praise. Typically, reviewers were employing some variant of Ebert’s line, “The movie contains less of its interesting story and more action and battle scenes than I would have preferred.” As if they (or anyone) attend animated children’s movies in search of material for their next dissertation.

Look, this is a movie for stoners

Look, this is a movie for stoners, and for children past toddlerdom—I suppose there’s some overlap there. These two groups should definitely make the effort to see Astro Boy while it’s still on the big screen. The kids will enjoy rooting for a plucky, conflicted hero, stoners will find great satisfaction ferreting out ample cultural references and reworkings of mythological and philosophical tropes, and both group’s jaws will drop during the big, bright, beautifully choreographed action and (bloodless) battle sequences.

I won’t repeat the story of Astro’s origins here, or recount plot details—I leave that task for lesser reviewers. But for stoners, probably my core audience, here are a few things to look for:

• Hayao Miyazaki references: In his many beautiful movies Miyazaki has created a visual language for animators seeking to express flight and buoyancy. And Pixar, in films like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and of course Up, have extended that language to computer animation. Now I love Pixar films, and they’ve done right by Miyazaki, but they inevitably use his ‘language’ in a way that feels ‘American’, if you will. In Astro Boy, the language remains closer to its Japanese origin. When Astro discovers his ability to fly, when robots and cars bob about on errands, when a city in the sky lists and sinks or when Leonardo’s notebooks are transformed into the flying fancies they depict, similar motifs from Miyazaki are powerfully recalled, without coming across as plagiarism. Simply put, Miyazaki fans will want to see this interesting homage. And it’s not just the flight sequences that recall Miyazaki. Astute fans of the director’s work will note that Astro Boy’s robot aesthetics quote Castle in the Sky, as do the scenes of robot reanimation. In my not so humble opinion, the movie is worth seeing for this alone.

• Changeling myths reworked: The non-human thing that mimics humanity is an ancient idea that grows in relevance as we close in on genuine artificial intelligence. Versions include the Pygmalion myth, Pinocchio, and the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica. Astro Boy doesn’t add anything to this substantial corpus, but it rings many of the changes satisfactorily. Dr. Tenma’s rejection of Astro is particularly poignant. And I enjoyed seeing a substantial discussion of identity issues sugar-coated for kids, and hope that I’m not the only one who pursued the topic later, with friends, over beer.

• Interesting cultural quotes: I’m sure I missed the majority of references to other art, but I caught enough to be convinced that the filmmakers were playing an interesting game. For instance, when Astro is forced to play the gladiatorial “Robot Games” a similar scene from Spielberg’s A.I. is clearly being reshot, with a meaningfully different outcome. Metro City (and the ruined Earth it hovers over) owes a lot to the overhead world in Wall-E and, for my money, is an altogether more appealing place. See also Metropolis, Asimov’s robotic laws, Jewish golem stories, manga and anime, Spiderman, The Thing, etc., etc., etc. It is a very rich stew for a movie that remains perfectly acceptable children’s fare, and a lot of fun to puzzle over.

In short, if you like animation, brilliant action, cultural cleverness, and/or worthy reworkings of old ideas, Astro Boy should be on your short list of movies to see while still in wide release. Tell them I sent you.

Follow this BS on Twitter.

Did you like this essay? You’ll love my books!

Tagged as: drugs, movies, philosophy