Astro Boy

Thousands of years in the future, the scientists of Metro City remove the borough from the ravaged, polluted Earth to maximise the planet’s capacity as a landfill. The city’s human population is now waited on hand and foot by a robotic workforce who abide by Asimov’s three laws of robotics; a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, a robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Astro Boy starts life as Toby Tenma (Freddie Highmore), a top school swot whose attempt to surprise his workoholic dad, Doctor Tenma (Nicolas Cage) at the Ministry of Science tragically coincides with a military experiment using ‘blue core’ energy and ‘red core energy’. The boy is killed leaving his desperate father to build a replacement robot fuelled by blue core and programmed with Toby’s memories and DNA. Sadly, the new Toby only reminds Tenma of his loss and the heartbroken little robot is rejected by his father just as the boy’s blue core superpowers attract the malevolent attentions of the city’s militaristic president Stone (Donald Sutherland).
Cast down to Earth, Astro Boy as he comes to be known, soon learns the truth behind the ‘utopia’ he used to call home.

Based on Osamu Tezuka’s landmark 1952 manga – the source for 1962’s first anime TV series and a huge influence on Speilberg’s Kubrick foundling, A.I. - this kinetic adult-friendly kid’s adventure was criminally overlooked on its US release last year. Don’t believe the lack of hype.