Astro Boy

Column: The Word on Films | Date Published: Tuesday, 3 November 09 | Author: Mark Russell | 3 years, 6 months ago

Farrrrk you David Bowers. Piss on my family photo album if you wish. Run over my very first bike; you'll get no tears from me. But leave Astro Boy the hell alone!

This woeful, ultra-American reworking of the classic Japanese cartoon series completely misses the point. It takes the moral complexity and emotion of the original and remakes it as a boring, convoluted, characterless shell. This is mainly due to a script that should never have made it past the first draft stage.

Instead of taking storylines from the series, or even something closely approximating them, writer/director David Bowers has given us a story focussed round two spacey little balls of light - one made of pure, hippy, positive energy and one pure negative. What. The. Shit? Everything's then peppered with a bunch of ridiculous plot points that would give a three year old pause, let alone us twenty-somethings who grew up loving this stuff. Case in point, Toby (the human boy Astro is made to replace) is killed by a weapon's blast that's strong enough to completely vaporise him - yet somehow his little red hat and a single hair survive. That's right, flesh and bone don't leave so much as a pile of ash but somehow woven cotton has the resilience of a lead-encased cockroach.

The cinematic abominations continue ceaselessly from here. Creator Osamu Tezuka must be spinning in his damn grave.

The only thing left is for Bowers to complete his retroactive child abuse and remake Monkey Magic with Paris Hilton as Tripitaka or something. Bastard!

NO STARS FOR YOU!

	Whatever Works: After the more straight-laced outings of Match Point and Vicki Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen is back to his existentialist comedy rants. In Whatever Works he's brought in Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David to play intelligent misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff. Boris's pessimistic existence is thrown into turbulence when he meets the luminous Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood). Their wildly unlikely and unconventional romance plays out in the streets of New York, changing them both irrevocably. This film has an odd feel to it, due mainly to Boris being like every character Allen himself played, while being portrayed just that tiny bit differently by David. Allen's writing and directorial powers combined with David's acting should combine to form some sort of ultimate Jewish angst film, but they don't. Woody could always ramble on with endless neurotic arrogance but Larry's louder and over-aggressive nature makes him too abrasive. The script is also not as restrained as his earlier work. The rants are longer with less actual relevance. And his knowing looks and speeches to the audience don't play well. Everything moves much more quickly when Patricia Clarkson steps in as Melodie's southern belle mother. She brings a sharp wit and strong personality to everything. Her character brings much needed conflict to an otherwise flat story structure. Overall Whatever Works is another odd Woody Allen film that will only truly impress the thinning ranks of his die-hard fans.

	Genova: When mother and wife Marianne (Hope Davis) dies in a car crash, widower Colin Friels takes his two daughters Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) to Genova, Italy. This ancient city becomes the backdrop for all of their attempts to deal with this grief. Genova is one of those films that doesn't impress, nor disappoint; it just, kind of, is. Conflict and hardship are constantly being built up by director Michael Winterbottom, only to be defused moments later. As such there is a continual sense of ill-ease and creepiness throughout. This is at its most heightened when younger daughter Mary starts seeing her mother's ghost. But then it kind of flatlines. Everything is well constructed and very honest. The performances and characters are near perfect and the city is shot beautifully but it all comes to naught. There's just not enough story for it to work. Events occur with little fanfare or interest, then fade into obscurity. We know these people quite well when the credits roll and the elements are there to make things interesting but it feels like Winterbottom is making a point of not following through. This is not the sort of film that will encourage passionate responses - whether positive or negative. In the end it's all fluffer and no money shot.