Blazehgehg

This has the feel of a foreign movie you've never heard of that gets an awkward English dub. Big name stars in the wrong roles putting in the work... with stilted dialog, strange direction, and an overall vibe that's just a little bit "off."

And the theme of the movie itself is just... hamfisted, I guess? I'm not super familiar with the original Astro Boy itself, but this movie plays out like a clumsy allegory for classism and racism, where robots are treated like disposable slaves that get dumped on the poor people living in the scrap heaps.

It's not impossible to pull that story off, but not with this quality of writing. Like, the main thrust of this plot is that Astro Boy is trying to pretend to be a real human boy. And every time he gets found out, it's like "Ew, you're one of them?" People who were previously warm to Astro suddenly feel betrayed for some reason, looking at him with disgust and contempt. The feelings and emotions he shared with them? Worthless. He's part of the slave class now. Even the poors don't like him once they learn he's a robot.

And I cannot reconcile that. In 2025, I know that people stick googly eyes on their roombas, give them cute names, and treat them like family pets. Despite loud, constant warnings to the contrary, others are falling in love with ChatGPT text generators, thinking that a mechanical parrot is somehow conveying emotions to them.

People would unconditionally love Astro Boy. A machine that thinks and feels like a real human being? Anyone would be in awe. But it's a plot point again and again, that because he's a robot, he can be treated like junk. That he can be dismantled and thrown away. It doesn't make any sense to me.

This feels like something you fished out of the dollar DVD bin at Wal-mart, next to "Kiara the Brave" or "Ratatoing". But... this is Astro Boy. He's a legendary character. A founding pillar of Japanese comics and animation. This should be a bigger deal than how weird and messy it feels. There are so many scenes and so many line reads that leave you scratching your head, because they just don't fit together.

I probably won't even have remembered watching this movie by the end of the week.

This is pretty close to a perfect movie. The cast of a syndicated science fiction show has the knowledge of their own characters put to the test when real life aliens mistake their show, "Galaxy Quest", as a recording of real events. They are now tasked with flying an exact, fully-functional replica of their fake starship in order to thwart real space-faring evil.

Incredible characters, perfectly cast actors, and pretty good special effects for what was apparently a somewhat low budget movie. Now, supposedly, this was originally rated R, and it got cut down to a PG-13. You can pick up on little hints of that throughout, and the movie definitely pushes the limits of a PG-13 once or twice. But it does not detract, and does not really poke any holes in this movie. Besides, Tony Shalhoub's performance is still funny, regardless of whether you know if he's actually high or not.

And it's more than just funny, even. Just about everyone gets a great payoff for their character, with a special shoutout to Alan Rickman as the crew's Spock stand-in, Doctor Lazarus. He's the most grouchy out of everyone that he's stuck still slumming scifi conventions for a long-dead TV show, and is especially jealous of Tim Alan's Jason Nesmith for commanding so much star power after all these years. And when Lazarus, Alexander Dane, finally gets his big character moment, it's one of the most powerful scenes in the whole thing.

Again, it's just about perfect.

First time ever seeing this. I know this spawned a huge franchise with ridiculous (and annoying) lore, but it's always fun going back to the origin point and seeing just how simple a movie like this is. Back when you could just make a one-off movie and not fill it full of sequel hooks. Just: hey, something weird is happening to my girlfriend, I may as well document it.

I would say masterfully subtle. There's a reason there's, what, seven of these movies now? Eight? Absolutely dedicated to having a single camera, and it's all about what you can't see. Every time there's a sound, your eyes are racing around wondering if you can see what made it.

I once read somebody talking about how magic only works on people who believe in it, and it theorized that incredibly stupid people must be immune to magic because they're too dumb to understand what's happening. I feel like that's gotta be the boyfriend here. The girlfriend is constantly getting more and more and more stressed, and as her stress level goes up, the activity picks up along with it. The entire time the boyfriend is like "duhhhh babe can you tell me what this ouija board says? Babe? Come on babe. Help me out here. Babe. You're so cute. Help me with this ouija board babe. I think this ghost wants to fight me."

The movie only ever really gets silly in the last 45 seconds. It goes just a little too far and that little bit feels kind of cartoonish.

Still: a good time!