Setting: We're in the not-so-distant future, where people own various types of fancy robots (basically the only futuristic aspect here, other than lots of neon-light adverts here and there). Most of the story takes place in Japan, but they also briefly go to China (which is very quick and easy to do in the future, apparently).

Basic storyline: A man and a woman live together, but man does not currently have a job, and woman pays for everything, which makes her lose faith in their relationship. Suddenly a robot appears in their backyard, and man tries to find out how to get rid of it. But it's not so easy, and he decides to keep it until he can find the original owner. Along comes some scientists that help him out, and he also becomes more friendly with the robot, as it's kinda cute.

Review: First of all, the movie is clearly aimed at kids, as the robot is very cute and child-like, so they're naturally bound to go "awww" whenever seeing it. But even with that in mind, the story is so clichéd and predictable, that I presume most movie-savvy kids will also be bored watching this (and it's probably not a movie you'd want to see more than once either),as it's at least half an hour too long. Some trimming (especially of the ending and post-story) would have helped it a lot! But as it's based on a book, they probably tried to get as much from the origin-story as they could, which is applaudable, even though the movie became a bit long in the tooth. But fans of the novel will probably be pleased - unfortunately I have not read it, which might be a reason I was not so thrilled with the story here.

Verdict: I saw this movie on a flight from Japan (flying with JAL Airlines),and it helped me very much falling asleep, which was good! And it was a fine "waking up"-movie the next morning too, as you don't need to pay much attention in order to able to follow the story. But this is not a movie I would otherwise recommend, unless perhaps you (or your child) have a fetish for robot-movies maybe.

Comparison: Kind of like "Wall-E (2008)" meets "Short Circuit (1986)" meets "Beethoven (1992)" (just with a robot instead of a dog). But all of those three movies were much better than this one. Still, a passable one-view timekiller though, so 5/10.