Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Our ongoing series reviewing the greatest Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror movies. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Directed By: Brad Bird
Produced By: Pete Townshend, Des McAnuff, et al.
Written By: Ted Hughes (Novel), Brad Bird (Story), Tim McCanlies (Screenplay)
Starring: Ed Harris, Eli Marienthal, Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel
Original Release: 1999

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: In 1957, shortly after the launch of Sputnik, a large object crashes from outer space to the Earth which turns out to be a giant, metal-eating robot. A young boy, Hogarth (voiced by Eli Marienthal), who lives in the nearby small town discovers his presence and saves the robot from destruction when it starts to consume a power plant and is nearly electrocuted before he switches off the power. This leads to him befriending the metal being and he begins to teach the robot, which was damaged in the crash, how to speak (Vin Diesel provides the voice) and the ways of the people of Earth which includes showing it his comic books and telling it that it is like Superman. However, the landing of the robot did not go unnoticed, and a paranoid government agent, suspecting a Communist threat, arrives at the small town to investigate. The agent suspects that the boy knows something about what landed in the area and keeps a close eye on him. This leads Hogarth to seeking the help of a beatnik artist, Dean (voiced by Harry Connick Jr.), who runs the local junkyard and who builds sculptures from scrap metal. The Iron Giant successfully hides there, in the guise of a giant sculpture, and befriends Dean as well. While playing around, the Hogarth aims his toy gun at the Iron Giant which triggers a self defense system and leads it to retaliate, nearly killing the boy. Hogarth and Dean manage to revert the robot back to its previous state, but, as its self-awareness continues to grow, it fears it is closer to the villain from the comics than the hero. Hogarth, though, tells the robot that it can chose whether or not it wants to be a weapon. The government agent eventually discovers the truth about the robot and he calls in the military to confront it which places this potentially lethal living weapon between the military forces and the people of the town.

Review/Commentary: Based on the 1968 Ted Hughes novel The Iron Man, the movie adaptation follows a similar formula to E.T. though with less of the smarmy feel of that film and with a bit of a subversive bent. In many ways, this film has the feel of some of the classic Disney animated movies, though with more layers to peel than the standard Mouse-House fare. This one takes the formulaic child and his pal (dog, alien, giant robot, what have you), and infuses it with some Cold War tension and paranoia while also injecting an anti-war message that never throttles the viewer with self-importance nor descends into simple panacea. It definitely has a familiar feel to it, like the proverbial comfortable shoe, but it manages to separate itself from the pack with its spark of inspiration and its sincerity, the crucial elements that elevates most stand-out films above the more routine Hollywood output .

The Iron Giant also delivers another thing that has become rare outside of Japanese animation these days. It mostly steers clear of the CGI animation which has dominated the genre for the past decade or more in favor of hand-drawn animation (they did summon up the computers to aid with animating the Iron Giant himself, but he is done in the style of line drawn characters). Not that I have anything against CGI animation, but the style of movies like The Iron Giant, along with the Disney classics, emphasize the artistic expression in animation as opposed to CGI’s efforts to make more realistic characters and/or to simple wow the audiences with computerized pyrotechnics. The simplistic, retro look of the artwork invokes the comic books of old that provide a pivotal plot point in the film and also echoes the simple attitudes of the era it depicts.

Most importantly, The Iron Giant engages the viewers and involves them in the film. Early on, we feel for this strange alien robot and sense his loneliness and confusion. As he develops a friendship with Hogarth, we hope that the robot will find his true purpose, and even when he turns on the young boy we know that it is against his own will. And anybody who still has dry eyes toward the end of the film when the Iron Giant declares that “he is not a weapon” and chooses to sacrifice himself to protect his friends needs to check that they still have a pulse. Many family-oriented animated films tend to play it safe and only mildly engage the emotions of the viewers, but The Iron Giant takes it to a deeper level and really speaks to our inner selves and challenges us at the same time that it reassures us. Exactly what you would expect from a great movie.

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