O Gigante de Ferro

An ambitious take on Ted Hughes' 1968 children's book The Iron Man, director Brad Bird's The Iron Giant works well as both archetype-infused allegory and heartstring-tugging tale of friendship. Set in small town Maine in the 1950s at the height of Cold War paranoia, the film explores the relationship between a lonely, fatherless boy (a photo on a nightstand hints that the father was a combat pilot killed in WWII) and a monstrously huge, hulking metal behemoth (the origins of which are brilliantly left to the imagination). The animation marks a welcome contrast from the virtually ubiquitous Disney template, with the human characters bearing a stylized, comic book exaggeration that fits perfectly with the story material. The Iron Giant has more than enough imagination and sparkle to interest kids and adults, and nicely balances its action-adventure aspirations with a solidly-crafted sense of moral purpose.

Sometimes when watching an animated feature, I spend my time saying, "What great animation." When this happens, I wonder if I am doing what the producers wanted me to do. Like so many things, should I be so enamored with the technical part of the movie that I am distracted from the content. As I watched "The Iron Giant" I realized I had forgotten it was an animated feature. Don't get me wrong. I knew the enormous title character was animated, but the relationships among the characters and the intelligence of the script caused me to forget that these weren't actors. The movie is filled with tender moments, especially as they relate to our feelings of our own mortality. What I enjoyed is that the grownups aren't treated as garden variety bad guys. Even the military, which is nearly always portrayed as evil, finds itself in a contradictory position--having to go on faith. The animation is wonderful, but so are the "performances." No spoilers here, but I think the ending is a lovely tribute to the spirit of the life force in all of us--even those of us not made of metal. See this. It is one of the better movies of the year.

"The Iron Giant" is the kind of animated film you wish there was more of. It respects the audience's intelligence, it has genuine emotion without resorting to schmaltz, and best of all it balances fantasy (well, science fiction) with believability. I think Warner Brothers animation has out-Disneyed Disney by adding thoughtful writing to clean, understated animation. What a concept!

The story is deceptively simple: Iron Giant falls from the sky at the dawn of the Space Race and befriends a young boy. But within that framework we get a double story, one for the grown ups and one for the kids, but the message is essentially the same one: paranoia and violence begets violence. I appreciate very much, as others who have commented, that no one burst into incongruous song and that there were no cutesy animal sidekicks. I should add that there were no clever yet implausible plot twists, nor were there any stock characters. The bad guy gets a little overheated, true, but he is never the embodiment of all things evil. The townspeople are your average small town Americans, not bumpkins. Mom is, well, mom-ish, caring but neither shrewish nor prone to whimpering outbursts. And our hero is plucky but not annoyingly precocious.

A BIG plus for this film is how well it weds the computer animation to the hand-drawn animation, a feat that the Big Mouse hasn't mastered yet. Even as recently as "Tarzan" it is glaringly apparent what parts are computer graphics and which aren't, and the contrast is very distracting. "The Iron Giant" makes a virtue of streamlined animation that draws your eye to the beauty of its color and motion.

It was a very VERY distinct and unusual pleasure to be treated to a film such as this. Give us more . . . please!

What a GREAT movie! Not just for kids, but adults as well. Kids will love it on one level, and adults will love it on another level. Even adults who are not parents will love it!

There's humor, there's action, there's nostalgia, there's the perfect capture of being a child, there are positive messages (be yourself, don't kill, etc.), there's satire, there are adults who are not stupid and not comic relief....there's GREAT WRITING!

AND NO SONG AND DANCE NUMBERS! Also, there are NO COMIC-RELIEF ANIMAL SIDEKICKS! Take that, Disney!

I know some people might be resisting this movie, because it looks like it's aimed for kids - and they might be expecting a Disney clone (and we all know the bad results of Disney wannabes).....but TRUST ME. Give this movie a chance - you'll love it!

Is there ANYTHING wrong with it? Well, the only thing that bugged me (just a little) were some close-ups of the characters - these certain close-ups had a "sketchy" look a la the movies "We're Back!" and "Balto".

Fortunately, there's very little of this. Other than that - this is a PERFECT MOVIE!

I'm 25 years old. I have no children. So why am I praising a 'kid's movie' which nobody saw? Because I have never seen a film pack the emotional wallop 'The Iron Giant' provided.

The film's plot is similar to 'E.T.' - a young boy meets an alien robot from outer space, who is stranded on earth, and runs afoul of paranoid government agents. Not to knock the Spielberg film, but what makes 'The Iron Giant' the better film is that the young boy is the teacher. It is he who has to teach the Giant about the beauty of life, the difference between good and evil, and choices we have to make. The Iron Giant, it turns out, is a weapon, who has to struggle against his own nature. The film has an obvious (and timely) gun control message, but its real message is about the choice we make when dealing with other people. We can use our powers for good or lash out at everyone around us.

I dare not give away the climax. All I will say is that it features a sacrifice absolutely breaktaking and emotionally shattering (albeit somewhat blunted by the ending). The animation is gorgeous, Michael Kamen's score is perfect, and the film beautifully evokes the 1950s.

Sadly, poor marketing kept audiences away in droves. All I can say is, to heck with the box office gross. Despite Warner's appearant desire to pretend the film never existed, the word is getting around about what a magical film this is, and I have no doubt it will join 'It's a Wonderful Life' as a film which bombed in theatres but became a classic over the years. See it now, so you can say you discovered it before everyone else did.