Astro Boy is a 2009 animated superhero film loosely based on the manga series of the same name by the Japanese writer and illustrator Osamu Tezuka.

Produced by the Hong Kong-based company Imagi Animation Studios, it was directed by David Bowers, who co-wrote the screenplay with Timothy Hyde Harris.

The film stars Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Matt Lucas, Eugene Levy, Samuel L. Jackson, Charlize Theron and Nathan Lane.

In the film, Dr. Tenma (Cage) creates Astro (Highmore), a teenage robot implanted with the memories of his son after he is killed in an accident.

In the 22nd century, Toby Tenma is a teenager who lives in the futuristic city-state of Metro City, which floats above the polluted surface on Earth.

They create the Peacekeeper, an advanced defensive robot fueled by using two powerful energy spheres with opposite properties, respectively in colors blue and red from a star fragment discovered by Elefun.

This immediately causes it to become hostile, accidentally killing Toby while attempting to violently leave the research facility before Elefun disables the Peacekeeper.

The next day, Astro comes across an old, offline construction robot named Zog, whom he reactivates through sharing some of the blue core's energy.

Moments later, Stone's forces arrive to take Astro back to Metro City, and he willingly surrenders himself.

As Elefun and the children find a destroyed Astro, Zog revives him with a surge of blue core energy.

In June 2004, animator and Dexter's Laboratory creator Genndy Tartakovsky was hired to direct a live-action/animatronics/CGI feature film.

[10] A year later, the studio made a three-picture distribution deal with Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company, which also included TMNT (2007) and Gatchaman.

Some changes to Astro's design had to be made in order to appeal to a western audience and making the leap to CGI.

The more challenging was his kawaii portrayal, part of which were his large eyes and curly eyelashes, features that the filmmakers thought made him too feminine.

This follows the same pattern as Dragonball Evolution (2009) and Speed Racer (2008), other American-produced films based on Japanese sources that were not big hits in the land of their origin but were very successful in China.

The website's critical consensus reads, "While it isn't terribly original, and it seems to have a political agenda that may rankle some viewers, Astro Boy boasts enough visual thrills to please its target demographic.

[26] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B and wrote that it had a "little too much lost-boys-and-girls mopiness", but "Astro Boy is a marvelously designed piece of cartoon kinetics..."[27] Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Times gave the mixed review claiming "The kids won't get it but will enjoy the big, climactic robot rumpuses, which owe a heavy debt to Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999)".

[28] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times gave it a mixed review, criticizing the film's confused tonal mixture of darkness and "commercially motivated" optimism.

[29] Conversely, Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, stating that "The movie contains less of its interesting story and more action and battle scenes than I would have preferred.

But Bowers knows how to infuse emotion without just ladling it out in Act III; it is at the core of the story, as Astro Toby teaches his father the verities of love, heroism and family feeling.