Astro Boy

Theatrical Release Date: 2009 10 23 (USA) / 2009 (USA)

UPC: 025192058417

Studio: Summit

MPAA Rating: PG   Contains:[Mild Violence, Excellent For Children, Mild Language]

Summary: A young robot with incredible powers, super strength, and the purest spirit on the planet discovers the joys of being human while embarking on a worldwide journey to discover his true potential in this animated update of Osamu Tezuka's classic anime story. Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore) is a young robot from futuristic Metro City. Created by a brilliant scientist named Tenma (Nicolas Cage), and powered by pure positive "blue" energy that gives him such abilities as x-ray vision, inhuman speed, and flight, the wide-eyed android longs to find his true place in the world. He sets out on an epic journey that brings him face to face with an underworld army of robots and some of the strangest creatures ever to walk the Earth, and along the way learns to experience human feelings and emotions. Astro Boy's remarkable mission of discovery is suddenly cut short, however, when he learns that his friends and family back in Metro City are in grave danger. As Astro Boy prepares to face off against his greatest adversary in order to save everything he cares most about, he realizes that only through victory will he finally discover what it takes to be a hero. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Children's/Family

Awards: Film Presented – London Film Festival Film Presented – Chicago International Film Festival

Features: Two all-new animated sequences:astro vs the junkyard pirates
Inside the recording booth
Designing a hero
Building metro city
The rrf in: the new recruit
Astro Boy image gallery: creating a global icon
Getting the Astro Boy look

Astro Boy

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 03/16/2010

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 94 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,Spanish

Subtitles: Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Astro Boy
1. Our Friends, the Robots [5:25]
2. Ministry of Science [7:13]
3. A Perfect Replica [5:00]
4. Home Schooling [4:59]
5. This is So Cool [4:15]
6. Everyone Has Their Destiny [2:33]
7. Collect the Core [4:04]
8. You're One of Us Now [3:49]
9. Call Me Astro [4:49]
10. This is Home to Us [5:31]
11. Walking Up ZOG [3:49]
12. Hidden Talents [:42]
13. The Secret Weapon [5:05]
14. Robot Games [2:50]
15. The Experiment is Over [6:33]
16. Help the Humans [6:11]
17. This is My Destiny [5:18]
18. I Was Made Ready [3:55]

Cammila Albertson

The plot of Astro Boy might sound a little dark for a kid's movie -- it's got death, robots, and implied class warfare -- but somehow, the end result is a rollicking good time. That kind of makes sense when you remember that this film is based on an anime. And in that peculiar way that Japanese animation has cornered the market on mixing seriously grave themes with super-dazzling cuteness, Astro Boy manages to glide past the implications of its own sometimes grim material and wow you with its wild action sequences alone. The movie's also got heart -- or at least a glowing blue core of volatile, concentrated energy. But despite what sounds like an insanely heavy backstory, the movie doesn't strive for the kind of heartbreaking poignancy and emotional gravity of Pixar fare. The premise is that in the distant future, society has relocated to a floating metropolis called Metro City -- or, rather, the upper crust of society has. The poor are stuck on the earth's surface (along with the world's misfits, runaways, and other outsiders), where the Metropolites dump their junk. It also happens that people have come to rely completely on robots to do all the dangerous, menial, or otherwise crappy work in their hovering utopia. Thus, we're introduced to Toby (Freddie Highmore), the spunky and brilliant young son of an important research scientist in the field of robotics, Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage). Tenma is demonstrating an ?ber-powerful new energy source called Blue Energy for an evil military bigwig named General Stone (Donald Sutherland) when Toby's insatiable curiosity lands him in the middle of an experiment gone wrong. The kid is killed in the accident (which we don't actually see), and his dad is devastated. So much so that he takes the Blue Energy nugget from the lab and uses it to create a super-powerful android version of his deceased son -- complete with all of the boy's memories, and jet rockets that can shoot out of his feet. But soon, Tenma realizes that the android can't replace his son and freaks out on his creation. The boy is forced to set out on his own, falling in with a ragtag group of orphans who live down on the surface, and discovering his own true self -- renaming himself Astro. Meanwhile, his new friends don't know he's a robot, General Stone wants to hunt him down and steal the orb illuminating his animatronic chest, and his dad is coming around to the idea he can love Astro as his own person. If that all sounds kind of gloomy, try thinking about the fact that in most sci-fi, when robots get treated this way, they rise up and cause the apocalypse. Even still, Astro Boy rarely feels scary, or even somber; in fact, sometimes the story feels downright standard. It's undeniably solid, though, and definitely a fun time -- no matter how humorless it sounds on paper. ~ Cammila Albertson, Rovi

Cast and Crew: John Ottman  Composer (Music Score) 
Maryann Garger  Producer 
Paul Wang  Executive Producer 
David Bowers  Director 
David Bowers  Screenwriter 
Francis Kao  Executive Producer 
Ken Tsumura  Executive Producer 
Cecil Kramer  Executive Producer 
Timothy Hyde Harris  Screenwriter 
Freddie Highmore  Actor 
Kristen Bell  Actor 
Nicolas Cage  Actor 
Bill Nighy  Actor 
Nathan Lane  Actor 
Donald Sutherland  Actor 
Eugene Levy  Actor 
Ryan Stiles  Actor 
Madeline Carroll  Actor 
Matt Lucas  Actor 
Bill Nighy  Actor 
David Bowers  Actor 
Elle Fanning  Actor 
Samuel L. Jackson  Actor 
David Alan Grier  Actor 
Alan Tudyk  Actor 
Dee Bradley Baker  Actor 
Moisés Arias  Actor 
Bob Logan  Actor 
Newell Alexander  Actor 
Sterling Beaumon  Actor 
Sofia Bowers  Actor 
Charlize Theron  Actor 

Country: Japan,Hong Kong,USA