The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant
1999 - Warner Brothers
Directed by Brad Bird



SYNOPSIS

A hundred-foot tall robot, presumably from outer space, comes crashing down in a rural Maine town in 1957. A young boy named Hogarth (Eli Marienthal) saves its life and the two overcome their size and language differences and become buddies... but Kent, a nosy government agent (Christopher McDonald,) threatens to destroy their friendship. Hogarth and his older friend Dean (Harry Connick Jr.) must try to keep the huge metal being out of sight.



MY THOUGHTS

When films are unanimously heaped with obscene tons of praise, without any dissenting opinion, I tend to avoid them like the plague. A movie can rarely ever live up to the hype. (especially when its trailer doesn't even hint on its greatness) How many movie ads in the newspaper have quotes from critics saying things like "an instant classic" and no one even remembers them 6 months later? The Iron Giant was one of those praise-heavy films and I managed to avoid it for just a few weeks shy of 10 years... but people still remember it and love it.

We live in a society of parents brainwashed by Disney and their own children and they make nearly every animated film released a success no matter the quality. This film scraped less than 25 million in its original release and that kept me vaguely interested in seeing the film. Was it too clever for the zombies?

I am very late in jumping on the bandwagon, but I now love this film.
The story is very moving and would appeal to kids of all ages, though some of the more disturbing images of violence may scare the youngest viewers.

The characters are believable and real even despite their animated-ness. Hogarth is a nice easy-to-relate-to kid. His relation ship with the robot reminded me of a boy trying to train a dog and it grew into a genuine loving friendship.
The character of Kent is never redeemed and that's more realistic than a cop-out Hollywood kids movie ending.

The old-school animation looks great. It was able to capture period details expertly, right down to the comic books and the past-futuristic design of the robot. There may have been a touch of some early computer animation to some of the scenes but it's not distracting, as some TV and movies of the 90's. The looks of the characters favor a classic Disney-style caricatures as opposed to a more realistic approach that could look potentially creepy (The Polar Express.)

Overall, this is a must for kids or fans of great animated films.