Published: November 05, 2009 10:33 am      

Film Review: ‘Astro Boy’ has lots of swoosh, spectacle

Look! Up in the air! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a movie based on a 1950s Japanese comic book that later became an international TV cartoon!

Now zipping onto the big screen, “Astro Boy” is the futuristic tale of a robotic youngster with some pretty impressive superpowers, including rocket-powered feet, x-ray vision and the ability to take quite a lickin’ and still keep on tickin’.

In the new computer-animated movie, we learn how Astro Boy came to be — and about a childhood tragically lost in the process. We watch as the young hero tries out his new tricks, putting him on a collision course with a corrupt military general and a gigantic, destructive cyborg dubbed (ironically) “Peacekeeper.”

Freddie Highmore, who played Charlie in 2005’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” provides the voice of Astro Boy, and Kristen Bell (from the recent live-action hit comedy “Couple’s Retreat” and TV’s “Gossip Girl”) speaks for Cora, a spunky young female who befriends him after he crash-lands in a junkyard fiefdom ruled by a flamboyant robot tinkerer (Nathan Lane).

Donald Sutherland has a hammy turn as hawkish Gen. Stone, but Nicholas Cage sounds like he’s sleepwalking through his lines as AB’s conflicted scientist father. Wake up, Nic, and earn that paycheck!

This is a movie straight-down-the-middle for kids, with lots of swoosh and spectacle.

As is the case with most movies made for younger audiences, the filmmakers throw in a handful of gags meant to make grownups smile — like a robot’s face-monitor status display that transitions from “! ! !” (alarmed) to “RELEASING FLUIDS” (very alarmed).

After its run as a comic book, a TV series and a video game, there’s just not a lot of new, unturned ground left for “Astro Boy” to explore. It looks sleek and snazzy, but everything here seems recycled.

There’s not really a novel idea to be found in the stitched-together storyline, a hodgepodge of pop-cultural references to Pinocchio, Frankenstein, Superman, the Jetsons, Daredevil, “The Iron Giant,” “District 9” and “Wall-E.”