Astro boy

One of the multi-million-dollar failures in the rush to produce CGI-animation 3D movies was 2009's Astro Boy. Maybe there'd recently been too many similar plotlines (e.g. Jimmy Neutron, A.I.), but why didn't such an action-packed sweetly-comic sci-fi morality tale gain a bigger audience, sequel and franchise potential?

Astro Boy, aka Mighty Atom, first appeared as a Japanese comic book (manga) action boy-hero in 1952, created by Osamu Tesuka. The do-good-feel-good character's first 1963 TV appearance marked the start of the anime genre of cartoon animation, and the bright-eyed baby-fatted hair-quiffed black-panted rocked-shod mighty little hero became a global children's favourite.

By the time American creative consultants had finished tweaking his representation for their home market, Astra Boy had gained a more Occidental face, trimmer body and shorts that weren't big Speedos. The project ended up with animators in Hong Kong and elsewhere, and the direction and major re-write were finally handed over to David Bowers, a British co-director of the Aardman-Dreamworks Flushed Away.

Astro Boy (voiced by Freddie Highmore) thinks he's Toby, the son of a top Metro City scientist (Nicolas Cage). He learns that he's really a Blue Core-powered robot clone designed by his father and another boffin (Bill Nighy) to replace the human boy who'd died in a battle with a robot packed with Red Core.

Rejected by his father after accidentally realising his unknown strengths, the robot boy lands up down on the scrap-world of Earth, along with all other redundant machines and unwanted children. A gang of them, including a lost girl (Kristen Bell), forage for their adopted Faginesque father-figure, Hamegg (Nathan Lane), who organises lethal Robot Games and welcomes Astro Boy's revitalisation of a century-old construction machine, Zog (Samuel L Jackson).

Meanwhile, the harsh vain ruler of Metro City (Donald Sutherland) needs to recapture Astro Boy's mighty Blue Core, while the plot's also amplified by other interesting characters (most cutely, Trashcan the belligerent robot dog and Mr Squeegee and Mr Squirt, ugly-fairy robot cleaners) and star voices (Charlize Theron, Eugene Levy, Matt Lucas). Most amusing (and amazing, for an American movie) are the comic trio of Robot Revolutionaries (Sparx, Robotsky and Mike the Fridge) waging fruitless war on Hamegg in defence of their exploited fellows.

All that plotting, and more, might have worked wonders if there had been a similar richness of visual gags, and if the star voices had been allowed to emote. Cage and Nighy are especially tediously muted, and there was clear indecision from the producers about the age, sexual awareness and girl-friendliness of Astro Boy. The Red Core foe is an imposing Transformer-like monster, but his final battle with Astro Boy mostly illustrates the flat 2D appearance of the sketchy cityscape of Metro City.

Astro Boy looks and feels like a rushed effort. As Pixar has proved year after year, a lot of time and effort - much more than in most movies - are needed to make CGI box-office bonanzas.