Bad Movie Review
I got off work early so I thought I would watch a movie on my list of movies to watch and review.
Tonight I have an hour a 30 minutes that I want back. Astroboy from 2009 is a total waste of time.
Netflix Rating 2 Stars, Not even the basics of story telling are here.
Netflix Review:
I am not sure who this movie is was targeted for. I found myself with a smile in the first 5 minutes but I quickly found myself realizing that I was happy from remembering the original manga(comic)
The beginning seemed very dark for young kids, then you have a separate story that is for kids but the addition of more and more throwaway characters and story elements leads to pandering to both a child and adult audience.
This story-line goes on for 2/3 of the movie. The moral lessons taught were buried so deep under multi character plots and a very weak Astroboy plot that I doubt anyone would notice them.
For animation done in 2009 I would have to say I have seen better from TV series in 2007. And the voice acting is not synced up or even well done for any of the character.
It does not bode well for your movie when three bit characters were more interesting than your main character.
I know some might think that this is over thinking it and the movie is meant for kids. That may be so but a boring movie is still a boring movie wether for adults or kids.
Thoughts:
I don' care if I spoil this one. This movie really sucked and no one needs to watch it.
First off Nicolas Cage has been a mostly miss actor for me. Few exceptions popped up through the 90's, but in the last few years I have found some real gems that level him out against some o f his performances like in Wickerman and Ghost Rider. Astroboy unfortunately drops him down a lot. His voice work is terrible, it almost sounds like he is reading the part of Dr. Tenma with the inflection of his character from "Raising Arizona". He is not even in the ballpark with the animations and this should be the dictionary example of "Phoning it in". Seriously, it will take a LOT for Nicolas Cage to win be back after seeing this performance.
As the Dr. Tenma he has the look right but the character is vastly underplayed in this despite he brink of madness followed up with stone cold sober guilt then a warming heart. In other words he is the title card for each act of the movie. And despite what I have written its not done that well.
Kristen Bell as the girl Cora, well voice and the animation has inflection, other than that two dimensional and I guess was meant to be a teenage crush for Astroboy?
My frustration continues...
Sam Jackson, less than a minute of dialog and you can not tell its him. And why does the black man have to be the construction robot? *joking*
Dr. Elefun played by Bill Nighy. I think that Nighy is the ONLY one that read the source material and understood who he was playing. That said, he tried so hard that it made the interactions with the others roll like an egg. Sorry Bill, I do love your acting.
Skipping everyone else I go to the second worst in this movie, Donald Sutherland. Why Donald do you have to voice act as bad as your son did in Armatige WHHHYYYYY!!!!
First half he is playing President Stone, a total asshole. Second Half he is merged with an negative charged robot and hams it up. Not Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons but more of a Jurgen Prochnow in Beerfest.
Think I forgot Astroboy? Might as well have, he is just as 2 dimensional as everyone else in this movie. Every time he got in trouble I did not care. It was just another scene with him in it. I did not feel sorry for him, happy, or rooted him on when he was winning. Not even when he sacrifices himself did I care. There was nothing there to work with.
Basically here is the run down. Genius kid goes to see his fathers[Tenma] research. You find out about the positive and negative energy sources and when the negative is put in the robot it goes berserk and kills the kid, off screen of course. Tenma mad with grief builds a robot with his sons memories in it. uses the positive energy and "brings his son back"
After he gets him back Tenma goes through the Frankenstein phase where he thinks its an abomination and tells the robot that he is not his son but... just a robot. Astroboy runs away, chased by military then ends up with orphans where the character development happens but doesn't then we come to the part where Tenma has to take the energy out of Astroboy but sees him [Astroboy] as a living being and we start the final battle with the villain. The end
Its really bad when your best characters are Nameless security guy 1, Floating squeegee and spray bottle robots, and a dog themed trash bucket robot.
Animation, for 2009 was shameful. Almost none of the mouth movements synced up, and everyone was so doughy and flat. Should have just done digital 2D animation with how flat everything was.
Tonight I have an hour a 30 minutes that I want back. Astroboy from 2009 is a total waste of time.
Netflix Rating 2 Stars, Not even the basics of story telling are here.
Netflix Review:
I am not sure who this movie is was targeted for. I found myself with a smile in the first 5 minutes but I quickly found myself realizing that I was happy from remembering the original manga(comic)
The beginning seemed very dark for young kids, then you have a separate story that is for kids but the addition of more and more throwaway characters and story elements leads to pandering to both a child and adult audience.
This story-line goes on for 2/3 of the movie. The moral lessons taught were buried so deep under multi character plots and a very weak Astroboy plot that I doubt anyone would notice them.
For animation done in 2009 I would have to say I have seen better from TV series in 2007. And the voice acting is not synced up or even well done for any of the character.
It does not bode well for your movie when three bit characters were more interesting than your main character.
I know some might think that this is over thinking it and the movie is meant for kids. That may be so but a boring movie is still a boring movie wether for adults or kids.
Thoughts:
I don' care if I spoil this one. This movie really sucked and no one needs to watch it.
First off Nicolas Cage has been a mostly miss actor for me. Few exceptions popped up through the 90's, but in the last few years I have found some real gems that level him out against some o f his performances like in Wickerman and Ghost Rider. Astroboy unfortunately drops him down a lot. His voice work is terrible, it almost sounds like he is reading the part of Dr. Tenma with the inflection of his character from "Raising Arizona". He is not even in the ballpark with the animations and this should be the dictionary example of "Phoning it in". Seriously, it will take a LOT for Nicolas Cage to win be back after seeing this performance.
As the Dr. Tenma he has the look right but the character is vastly underplayed in this despite he brink of madness followed up with stone cold sober guilt then a warming heart. In other words he is the title card for each act of the movie. And despite what I have written its not done that well.
Kristen Bell as the girl Cora, well voice and the animation has inflection, other than that two dimensional and I guess was meant to be a teenage crush for Astroboy?
My frustration continues...
Sam Jackson, less than a minute of dialog and you can not tell its him. And why does the black man have to be the construction robot? *joking*
Dr. Elefun played by Bill Nighy. I think that Nighy is the ONLY one that read the source material and understood who he was playing. That said, he tried so hard that it made the interactions with the others roll like an egg. Sorry Bill, I do love your acting.
Skipping everyone else I go to the second worst in this movie, Donald Sutherland. Why Donald do you have to voice act as bad as your son did in Armatige WHHHYYYYY!!!!
First half he is playing President Stone, a total asshole. Second Half he is merged with an negative charged robot and hams it up. Not Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons but more of a Jurgen Prochnow in Beerfest.
Think I forgot Astroboy? Might as well have, he is just as 2 dimensional as everyone else in this movie. Every time he got in trouble I did not care. It was just another scene with him in it. I did not feel sorry for him, happy, or rooted him on when he was winning. Not even when he sacrifices himself did I care. There was nothing there to work with.
Basically here is the run down. Genius kid goes to see his fathers[Tenma] research. You find out about the positive and negative energy sources and when the negative is put in the robot it goes berserk and kills the kid, off screen of course. Tenma mad with grief builds a robot with his sons memories in it. uses the positive energy and "brings his son back"
After he gets him back Tenma goes through the Frankenstein phase where he thinks its an abomination and tells the robot that he is not his son but... just a robot. Astroboy runs away, chased by military then ends up with orphans where the character development happens but doesn't then we come to the part where Tenma has to take the energy out of Astroboy but sees him [Astroboy] as a living being and we start the final battle with the villain. The end
Its really bad when your best characters are Nameless security guy 1, Floating squeegee and spray bottle robots, and a dog themed trash bucket robot.
Animation, for 2009 was shameful. Almost none of the mouth movements synced up, and everyone was so doughy and flat. Should have just done digital 2D animation with how flat everything was.