Astroboy - David Bowers
One of the most famous and prolific animated characters has had a recent outing, being updated for the American audiences, for people who don’t know the name or who he is. This character, originated in Asia, stared in many video games, television shows, films, graphic novels, comic books, novels, and shitloads of stuff really. His name is Astroboy. A robotic boy made by his inventor father after the real boy dies. He’s a culture figure in Asia, and to the masses of fans of anime and following the cultural figures from cartoons, but as fallen out of the limelight in the Western world. Ask a person who Astroboy is, chances are, they either know of the name or know what he looks like or sometimes people just won’t know. They know more about Snooki then they know about Astroboy.
Any who, the story follows a famous inventor, here voiced by the strangely good Nicolas Cage, or Nic Cage, which sounds fifty times cooler. He is a famous inventor who helps in building robots and creates the future of society, where they are living on a large piece of land which is floating in the sky, covered in technology advancements and helpful robots, he has a son, who he loves, he accident is killed, and a robotic version is created using a piece of pure ultimate good energy, creating the strongest, the fastest and the smartest robot ever, being able to think like a regular human and fit into society easily. But as he learns to find out he is a robot, he begins to experience problems with fitting in, especially his father who cannot accept himself for what he has done to his original son. Through in a political struggle between the current major and the inventor, a fight ensues over the created ultimate good energy, along with the invented ultimate bad energy. Yes, it sounds very cheesy, but it’s a kid’s film, come on.
Overall, for a CGI film, its good, it has some parts that bore you and have no action, to parts that are explosive and defiantly going in the right direction. But as a whole, the film lacks the Pixar quality for it to be taken seriously as a great animation film. Unfortunately because of how great Pixar is, all animated films are compared to them, it should be the level of all quality, which Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation company always seems to compete with, and Astroboy falters. Even Wallace and Gromit matched up to the standards...
5/10
Simon Childs
The Book of Eli – The Hughes Brothers
The destruction of civilisation, the end of humanity, the final days of man, the, erm, stopping of, say, perhaps, people? Yeah, there have been loads of media, including films, television shows, video games, that depict the end of the world, where it becomes a baron wasteland. We’ve all seen different interpretations, some original, some following the general consensus of how the human race will become horrible, ravaged people, fighting to stay alive. And to a point, they could be true, i certainly believe that without the right order, chaos would ensue. But, the way that people suddenly change is slightly more exaggerated, for instance, if the world did go to shit, i would instantly kill my family for the last of the milk supply in the fridge. And i would stab my neighbour’s cat for food. Come on. We are not that bad, maybe in extreme circumstances, but i highly doubt it! Anyway, here is a new version of the world becoming destroyed by something or someone, and it follows a lone man, wandering through the desert to find something. It’s The Book of Eli staring the always amazing Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman with the on/off Mila Kunis.
The plot revolves around civilisation being destroyed by an explosion. It isn’t really described in detail what has happened, but something to do with the sun perhaps? I’m not entirely sure what happened, just that everyone is killing anyone for food and water, that towns are rundown, filled with people in raggy clothes and beards. A lot of beards. Denzel stars as a man who just walks a lot, and can fight very well. He likes to wear sunglasses too. There is a massive twist at the end, that you won’t quite believe, but it works, adds a new angle to the whole film and you question the beginning to the end. Oldman stars as a sheriff of a local town who is in search of books, so by having these books he can take control of other towns as he seems to be the only one who can read. He is desperate search of the bible, as all copies were destroyed in a massive fire back in the day of the explosion which caused the world to be like this. So, with that in mind, you can guess who has a copy. It begins a cat and mouse chase with Mila Kunis involved as Denzel’s love interest who after being a slave to Oldman, follows Denzel and helps him out with his travels.
It’s okay. It’s very long in parts, not much happens, but the action sequences are shot well. It’s defiantly not going to win any acting awards, it’s a middle order film, where it isn’t amazing, nor is it shit. It will fill a good hour or two of your time, but don’t expect anything truly spectacular.
6/10
Simon Childs
Astroboy - David Bowers
