No One Goes To Movies Anymore - Iron Giant

One of the things you get asked a lot when you review a lot of movies (and one of the things that is just popular in conversation in general), is why they just don't seem to make any good movies. I used to try with this question. I just smirk now.

The answer is that you people who are complaining that there aren't any good movies don't go to the good movies, should anyone dare to make one. And, here's another example.


'Iron Giant' is easily among the best movies to come out in the last few years, animated or otherwise. I recall it getting rather a decent amount of push before being released, so you knew it was out there. Did anyone go? No. Well, some people went. When 'Shrek' and 'Monsters Inc.' came out you couldn't keep people away. Of course, they had cute little characters, and lots of dancing and singing, and oh weren't they wonderful. Don't get me wrong, they were both good movies. They pale in comparison to this one. What Iron Giant lacks in 'cute and fuzzy bunnies' it tries to make up for with great animation, excellent writing, a story, and a seriously refreshing 'voice' it uses to talk to its audience.

The movie has been often compared to 'E.T.', and perhaps obviously so, but there is no comparison in my book. I never liked 'E.T.' It was alright in its way, but it was all glitz and sham, and apart from the basics of the story, it was horribly written. It was little more than an example of kicking a dog just because we know kicking a dog will make you cry, and nevermind the fact that the kicking of the dog doesn't have much to do with anything. In other words, it was typical Spielberg. It was also a run down that common road whereby children are basically idiots. Elliot was an idiot, and his little sister was borderline retarded. But, weren't they cute?


'Iron Giant', on the other hand, is a movie with serious themes, and Hogarth acts like an intelligent, normal boy. He doesn't react to things like he's stupid just because he's young.


Hogarth is a small boy, living in a small town in Maine. His mother Annie works as a waitress in a local diner. Life changes one day when the Iron Giant, from somewhere in space, crash lands very near their house. By the way, it's the fifties. One night when Hogarth is home alone, his mother having to work late at the diner, the Iron Giant comes by for a little nibble of TV antennae, and Hogarth follows his trail back into the woods.

Hogarth finds him, is scared out of his mind, but before long must save him from the electricity station that the Giant was trying to eat. He eats metal you see. Annie comes looking for Hogarth, and the Giant has disappeared.

Others have seen the Giant, and the word gets out, though no one believes anyone. But, the government gets a tip and sends agent Kent Mansley to investigate. Of course, Mansley thinks the whole thing is ridiculous and wants to just go through the motions so he can get out of this tiny town in Maine. That is, until there is suddenly a huge chunk bitten out of his car.

Before long, Hogarth and the Iron Giant have made friends, the Giant acknowledging that Hogarth saved him, and they (mostly Hogarth) have to figure out what to do with a 100-foot robot. They stumble upon a scrap yard (or buffet as the Giant sees it), and the 'beatnik' Dean who owns the place, and makes art out of the metal scrap. Dean gets let in on the whole thing, somewhat accidentally, and so he becomes tangled up with the boy, his Giant, and their schemes to cover things up.

Meanwhile, agent Mansley is poking around into everything, and he gets a nice little clue (and later hard evidence), that Hogarth knows where the giant is. He prods and pokes at Hogarth, and things get down right 'dark' about the whole process. Mansley is a card carrying representative of the paranoia people have as regards the unknown, as well as the general paranoia of the time during which the piece is set. He is also rather a nut.

Basically, things progress on down this road. Hogarth, Dean, and the Iron Giant get acquainted, and Mansley gets closer and closer to the truth, finally calling in the army when the evidence piles up.

During one scene, we see some hunters shoot a deer, and during the explanation of guns and death, etc., the Iron Giant registers guns as dangerous. Not long after, Hogarth points a toy gun at the Iron Giant in play, and what is apparently a semi-automatic defense mechanism takes over, and the Giant fires a laser at, and nearly barbecues, Hogarth. At this point, even Dean begins to wonder, and turns on the Giant.

Now during this time, we are given to understand that something about the crash to earth has caused the Iron Giant to forget exactly where he's from, what he's supposed to be doing, so forth and so on. So, it comes as a serious surprise to him when this defense mechanism kicks in.


And that is where I'll leave you on the plot, so as hopefully not to give everything away.



Our voice actors do a great job. Jennifer Aniston is the voice of Annie, Hogarth's mom. Hogarth is voiced by Eli Marienthal (Jack Frost, American Pie 2), and Kent Mansley is given to us by Christopher McDonald (and I swear I thought it was Tim Allen for most of the movie).


As I've said, it is a sometimes dark, intelligent movie that is for kids (though one should watch it first to see if it falls into what is acceptable for one's own children and/or their age) and adults, without resorting to cute, bouncy characters, bodily function humor, or needlessly happy songs in order to appeal to children. Nor does it treat children like they're stupid. Our child in the movie is an intelligent, sometimes quipy, young lad, and the story, scenes, and delivery treat the children in the audience as though they might know a thing or two.


Brad Bird is not a name you hear very often, and it looks like that's a rather sad tale in itself. He has been associated with 'The Simpsons', and he wrote '*batteries not included'. Here, he directs (and let's face it, I don't especially know what that means in an animated movie apart from generally being in charge), and wrote the screenplay. If this is any true example, I certainly wish there were more available from Bird.


The story is based on the book 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes, and that book is as good as the movie. Delivering its story in much the same way, treating children with some respect and as though they might have some intelligence.



This is an excellent feature in every way. From the fairly realistic, and more importantly believable, dialogue and interaction between characters, to the vivid and mood-inducing animation. And, there's nothing like a movie that makes fun of those goofy 'duck and cover' nuclear disaster drill movies that kids had to watch in school. Not only is it hilarious to see that, in the disaster film, the children duck under their tables, a nuclear bomb hits, and all that's left is the kid, the table, and a great hole surrounding them, but the movie really pokes its jab when agent Mansley suggests, 'we can just duck and cover' when a nuclear missile is approaching, and he's serious.


Definitely recommended.


We have two interesting themes at the forefront of the movie. The first is that 'you can be whoever you choose to be', which Dean delivers to Hogarth, and subsequently Hogarth delivers to the Giant.

The second, and related theme comes to us in the face of the Giant's personal relationship with the first theme. As the Giant says defiantly, 'I am not a gun'. And, as later Hogarth tries to impress upon the Giant that he can 'be whoever he chooses to be' thus attempting to convince the Giant that he needn't be a gun. The kick here, and where this branches into its own theme, and perhaps at the same time solidifies itself as the same theme, is in the fact that the Giant, in fact, is a gun. Once the bullets start flying we see that, whatever else we know about the Giant (such as that he seems to be a represenative of the A.I. community) he most certainly is a great big gun.

So the idea becomes that even in the fact of actually being a gun, you can choose not to be a gun. Or, as the page turns and we look at people, even in the face of blatantly being (whatever), you can choose not to be.

You cannot, one would think (or one certain Mansley would think), choose not to be a gun when you are, in fact, a gun. Not anymore, at least, than you could choose not to be a person if you are, in fact, a person. And yet, it turns out you can.



A highly entertaining, intelligent movie from someone who finally breaks away from the tradition of thinking that 'adulthood' is something that children, obviously, can't have, and that 'childhood' is something that goes away.