“Astro meets a group of plucky orphans, who live with robot repairman and showman Hamegg (Nathan Lane), and grows close with scrappy exile Cora (Kristen Bell). He wants to tell her he’s a robot, but events conspire. Meanwhile, General Stone’s desire to win the election on a law and order platform leads to lawlessness and disorder. Will Astro Boy save the day? You don’t need to worry about that, but you do need to worry if your young ones are going to be freaked out by a good, decent heroic human boy being microwaved into mist by a crazy robot and then the human-seeming robot who replaces him being attacked by a variety of much larger, much meaner robots. My press screening was kid-free, but a peer who went to a matinee that included the general public and their kids reported on plenty of crying from the younger ones in her audience as Toby was zapped off this mortal coil and Astro Boy was beaten, bludgeoned and blasted by a huge metal-absorbing law-and-order droid in the overly action-packed climax. (Any critic who complained about the lack of story in “Where the Wild Things Are” should be forced to watch the escapades and high jinks of “Astro Boy” on a loop until they realize that activity is not to be confused with actual storytelling.)”
– from my MSN Movies Review
