Astro Boy First Full Trailer
Imagi Movie Stars Nicolas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Bill Nighy
Aug 12, 2009
After the nail-biting drama of whether or not Imagi Studios would live long enough to produce their silver screen adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, it's great to finally see an official trailer for the film appear in Cyberland.
Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Samuel L. Jackson, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy and Eugene Levy make up a large chunk of the voice cast. They join Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as the voice of the titular robot.
David Bowers (Flushed Away) is directing from a scipt written by Timothy Harris (Kindergarten Cop).
Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland in Imagi Studios' Astro Boy
Overall, it's a fun little trailer that sells the film. Okay, there's the occasional questionable joke ("I got machine guns . . . in my butt?") but Imagi has the visuals down, and knows how to set up an action sequence. The only question is whether the story is up to par: their previous effort, TMNT, looked great but the story wasn't there.
There are however, a few problems. The first is that Astro's hair seems to randomly move around. In the first shot, the pointy bit is on the left side of his head. In the next shot, it mysteriously migrates to his right. This could:
- A nod to Tezuka's slip-ups in the original stories (can't say for sure, having not read Tezuka's manga),
- An in-joke among the Imagi animators – a la Marty Feldman's hump in Young Frankenstein
- One of Imagi animation supervisors was asleep on the job.
The second problem is one endemic with Hollywood's approach to animation. Most studios – other than Pixar – still haven't figured out that the star system doesn't really apply. It's rare that a Hollywood star can cut it in the voice booth: otherwise talented actors like Reese Witherspoon (Monsters vs. Aliens) or Luke Wilson (Battle for Terra) run into trouble when they can't use their facial expressions, or their body, to evoke an emotion.
Also, let's face it: how many fanboys who drool over pictures of Kristen Bell or Charlize Theron on sites like Moviehotties.com will want to hear their voices in an animated film? Better to go with proven talent like Mae Whitman or Grey DeLisle, both of whom did stellar work in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
When it comes to Astro Boy, Nicolas Cage's vocal tones, as Dr. Tenma, are certainly distinctive . . . perhaps too distinctive. Much like Liam Neeson and Cate Blanchett in Ponyo, the fact that you can readily tell it's an actor overshadows the character: you're listening to Nicolas Cage, not Dr. Tenma.
Can Imagi pull it together with this flick? Find out when Astro Boy hits theatres on October 23rd.
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