Review of The Iron Giant (1999) by Chantal B — 02 Oct 2013

One of my new favourite movies. I recall not liking it much as a child (something about the robot was unlikable to me then), but as an adult I have to admire the awareness of the era it was set in, the diverse characters and the likability of the robot and his relationship with the boy, which manages to be charming without slipping into annoying cliches and saccharine nothings. No heart prods here! My one problem would be the villain, who came close at times to be a true embodiment of the ultra-nationalist McCarthy Paranoid the era produced. No, he was there, and interesting for that. Then at the end they tried to distance him from that. ("Screw America, I want to live!) A dding a little more gray to the character would have really captured the sort of people fostered by that time. If he had been a truly terrified individual, expecting the worse because of the extreme paranoia fostered by the Cold War, it would have complimented the story of the two 'enemies' reaching a friendship and understanding in Giant and Hogart.

The animation is of course Brad Bird Awesome.