My favorite band is the Zombies. They had a couple of hits back in the sixties, but that's all they're really known for. I got heavily into them after "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" had one of their songs on the soundtrack, plus when I discovered Rolling Stone Magazine had ranked their album "Odessey And Oracle" as the eightieth greatest album of all time. The album was released in 1967 and it took a year for one of its songs to break out, "Time Of The Season". Too bad the band broke up in between, as the immediate response to the album was of such mass indifference they felt there was no point in continuing. There's no question "Odessey And Oracle" is one of the greatest albums I've ever heard and it's a tragedy that it was the grand finale on their career. "The Iron Giant" falls into the same category. This is the greatest non-animated Disney film I've ever seen. Future Pixar director Brad Bird was able to make a film with little to no studio interference and was able to produce a real masterpiece. Why were there no more films like this? Oh, because no one saw it and it made no money.
In 1957 Rockwell, Maine, young Hogarth Hughes discovered a giant robot
who fell from space in the woods near his home where he lives with his
widowed mother. He develops a "Boy And His Dog" relationship with the
Iron Giant and ends up having to hide him from FBI agent Kent Mansley and the US Military
who are investigating strange goings-on around the area. I vaguely remember seeing previews for this back in 1999 when it was first released. The prior decade had been a gold mine of animated awesomeness. Disney
put out a murderer's row of titles like "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty
And The Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King" that were the
introduction to movies for my generation. But starting with "Pocahontas" the formula had begun to get stale and by the end of the decade, I was thirteen and more interested in buying tickets for "Tarzan" and sneaking into "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo". That's why watching this film almost made me sad in a way. We don't see too many classically animated films anymore. It's hard to even write a review for this because it's practically perfect.
Pixar and Dreamworks have cornered the market on celebrity voiced computer animated films with enough adult humor to appeal to both small children and the parents forced to watch with them. Unfortunately when the balance shifts towards the adults, you're stuck with films like "Shark Tale" and when it shifts towards the children you get "Cars". "Iron Giant" would be two different films for both groups, and both would be spectacular. I'll never know how I would have viewed this as a youngster, but as the twenty-seven year old I am at the moment, I was blown away by the story, the animation, the voicework, and the combination of it all. It wears its influence on its sleeve by naming the town after the great Norman Rockwell, and his influence shines through the faces of the people and the scenery surrounding them.
The traditional animation works well for a film set in the fifties. There are shades of the classic Disney style from films of that period like "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Sword In The Stone", but also a more hyper-kinetic style similar to works from the nineties. The pace reminded me at times of the energy of "The Simpsons" while the humor had a dryness to it like "King Of The Hill". The animation of the faces was especially entertaining. There are moments where I wanted to freeze the frame just to study the different expressions characters were making. The amount of detail put into every character's personality and movement would be something most live action films would like to achieve. At the same time, there are no breaking the fourth wall, wink at the camera moments, and no out of place modern references like you'd get in rival children's films. You do get all the classic fifties trademarks, diners, beatniks, G-men investigating aliens and commies, "duck and cover" and when an anomaly like the Giant is thrown into the mix, it's treated with humor, but also with realistic responses from every character involved. That's what's so refreshing about "The Iron Giant". There's no reason why an animated film or a children's movie can't also be of strong quality. Here the story is so well told, that every visual flourish is just a great bonus. And were it but for the Iron Giant himself, this easily could have been a film like "Stand By Me" or "A Christmas Story", it's that well developed.
The Iron Giant himself should have been the big toy of 1999. Voiced by Vin Diesel (his voice mostly sounds like the grinding of metal, but Diesel's voice is low enough that when he enunciates, it does sound like what a giant robot would sound like), the Giant was created as a weapon, but after losing his memory and befriend Hogarth, he's basically Andre the Giant from "The Princess Bride" only easier to understand. The physical humor his giant form allows is some of the funniest I've seen from any genre of film. If he's damaged, his body automatically repairs itself, which lends itself to hilarious scenes of Hogarth trying to hide the giant's huge hand (acting like a dog) from the view of his mother and Kent Mansley. I wasn't predisposed to like the Giant (I'm inherently afraid of anything from outer space made to kill humans), but his character is surprisingly sympathetic and so full of childlike naivety that by the middle of the movie I was totally on his side.
I've glossed over most of the plot to focus on everything else, but rest assured it's pretty amazing. Bird is able to tell a story combing the Cold War fears of the 1950's with a parable about being who you want to be. The Iron Giant may have been built as a weapon, but he chooses to believe "I am not a gun" which is a great message every young child should learn. And while the undercurrent of the red scare which populates the film is old hat to me, a young child would most likely be encountering this era of American history of the first time, hopefully leading them to find out more about it. And it's still relevant in today's post-911 political landscape. It's scary how close we were getting to the days of "The Crucible" and I'd hope films like this would open kids' eyes to the dangers of hysteria, despite who their parents may vote for.
Warner Brothers hasn't made a traditionally animated full length film since this came out thirteen years ago. As it stands, this is one of the last connections to the prior sixty-five years of animation. Again it all comes down more to the quality of story over how it's told and here we have a simple, but fantastic story told very well. Bird went on to make "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille", and while I like Pixar I've always found myself left wanting more their pictures. "The Iron Giant" stands tall among both animated and non-animated films as an example of a film that succeeds on every level. I just wish I'd gotten to it sooner.
Rating - 5 out of 5 stars
Random Thoughts -
I usually don't like seeing films with plots like this. I'm not a fan
of stories where the world is undeniably changed forever because in
real life, I'd be absolutely terrified. The universe has certain rules and if I ever saw a ghost or if a stuffed animal starting moving around by itself, I wouldn't be able to live rationally anymore. Here we have a giant iron robot
crashing on earth opening the door to all sorts of problems, eventually leading to the threat of total destruction. Even after everything turns out fine for the most part, I wouldn't be able to live knowing that things like the Giant exist. And the last scene, which is supposed to be reassuring and happy, kind of horrified me.
Fantastic voice work all around here.The standout to me is
Christopher McDonald who plays the G-Man, Kent Mansley as a combination of Fox Mulder and Shooter McGavin.
McDonald hits all the right notes as a smug buffoon, who nevertheless has connections to the US Army and is a genuine
threat to the boy and his giant. If this was a live action film, it would have to be one of the most amusing performances in the history of film.
The timing of the comedy is this film is astounding. I laughed out loud a bunch of times and the detail paid to everything on the screen is remarkable. The whole section after Mansley moves into the spare room Hogarth's mother has rented out is a masterclass in perfect timing.
There's a great scene where we find out how a giant robot would react to seeing "Bambi's mother getting shot (He gets sad).
This film already had me on its side since its set in the fifties and I'll read/watch/listen to anything set in that time. Hell, the only reason I enjoyed "The Majestic" was because of the time period. One of the best books I've read over the past year is Stephen King's 11/22/63. The first 500 pages were honey to my brain as it's just a guy using a time machine to live in the fifties until 1963 where he can stop the Kennedy assassination. That first half is him living a life from 1958 onwards, but once he gets closer to the assassination I started skimming the rest, hoping it would get back to just living in the fifties.
Comic books were undoubtedly a big influence of the film. Hogarth reads to the Giant from his Superman comics and the Giant later chooses to identify with the "Man Of Steel" rather than his original fate as a giant weapon. For those of you who read comic books, I see the film "The Iron Giant" as the design of Mignola's Hellboy + the humor of Giffen/Dematteis' Justice League + the tone of Robinson's Starman.
Next - Monday the 29th, The Last Detail
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