Review of Astro Boy

The Japanese manga character has had a hollywood makeover and David Bowers who wrote and Directed the animated feature has certainly delivered a simple take on Arthur C Clarke's robot rules mixed with a story about a father and his frankenstein son in the shape of a robot brought to life with 'Blue energy'.

The voice overs are provided by the likes of Charlize Theron, Nicolas Cage and Donald Sutherland, impressive and almost too big but what starts out as a simplistic good versus bad energy from outer space turns into quite a delightful tale.

I was also impressed by the take on fighting, as Astro Boy is specifically endowed with rockets for legs and torpedo arms and his refusal to fight with his fellow robots was surprisngly refreshing yet the story delivers on the emotional tugs with his real father and his refusal to be twisted by the humans.

The animation itself is clean and crisp, the gags simple and endearing and will wow the kids even with its predictability.

Seeing as I chose to take the little ones to Battle For Terra at the cinema over Astro Boy this was by far the better choice, less violent and far more stunningly visual than Battle For Terra.

Astro Boy may be a simple storyline but it doesn't fail to entice the kids with its charm.

That last ten pages

OK I had a plan for the last 10 pages, well more of a sentence which ties everything up. The problem is I spent a whole evening writing how they get to the end in 8 pages which leaves me 2 pages to tie everything up. Oh well.

Then I was thinking are there enough up and downs? I will leave those till after the first read-through. Once I've cut it all down a bit.

That's the problem with going to see The Karate Kid when you're writing the last act.