Astro Boy
By: Amy Nicholson
While parents fret over the fright factor of the Wild Things, an even darker cartoon prepares to creep into the multiplex. First published as a groundbreaking Japanese manga in 1952, Astro Boy introduces us to a floating megalopolis named Metro City that hovers a mile above the over-polluted Earth. There, robots have thoroughly Jetson-ized human existence, and humans like famed scientist Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) have repaid their service by installing them with sentience and emotions, and then treating them as casually as Dixie cups. Tenma’s son is one of Metro City’s most promising prodigies, a smart and generous boy named Toby (Freddie Highmore) who is promptly incinerated by his father’s Orwellian-named “Peace Keeper” robot. Dear old dad rebuilds his son as a robot, injecting him with the memories of the original and vowing to be a better dad to this ’bot who thinks he’s a real boy. Of course, things go bad quickly thanks to a politician (Donald Sutherland) desperate to start a war in time for re-election. Even before the robot gladiator death matches, David Bowers’ cartoon gives us ghoulish (and good) shivers—among its smart and unexpected twists is a Robot Revolutionary Front that worships Lenin. It’s harsh, but it’s sweetened by Toby, who even as a cyborg is one of the truest, cleverest, most loyal protagonists of the year—he’s not a real boy, but he’s a classic hero.
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