This beautiful animated film, made in 1999 by Brad Bird (who worked on The Simpsons, King of the Hill and then had huge hits with Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille) more than deserves it's reputation as an overlooked gem; one of those movies that failed to find an audience upon release, but now has a huge cult following.
The Iron Giant, adapted from the late poet laureate Ted Hughes book, The Iron Man shares some themes with E.T. - a young boy meets a visitor from outer space who's stranded on Earth, and falls prey to paranoid government agents. But The Iron Giant is so much more than that. When lonely kid, Hogarth Hughes, who's raised by his single mother (Jennifer Aniston) meets the amnesiac iron man (Vin Diesel), he enlists the aid of hipster beatnik, Dean (Harry Connick Jr) to stop an obsessed Federal Agent from finding and destroying the Giant.
Taking place during the fifties at the height of the Cold War, The Iron Giant is an utterly charming and lovingly crafted parable. It draws on a stylised view of the past when America was preoccupied with nuclear holocaust and little green men (indeed there's an hilarious cartoon public service film, Duck and Cover where kids are advised to shelter from a nuclear attack by hiding under a table), and looks utterly unlike any other cartoon you've ever seen.
I'm not a huge fan of cartoon movies as a rule. I get easily restless during the parade of cute animals and song and dance numbers. But The Iron Giant has none of that. What it does have is some of the best voice acting I've ever heard on an animated movie, a loving 50's retro-futurism look to the characters and the huge clunking Giant, a lot of humour and a huge huge heart. This is the movie of a true auteur. Moving and unforgettable, The Iron Giant is one of the (if not the) best animated movies ever made. Wonderful.
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