Director – Brad Bird – 1999 – US – Cert. U – 88m
*****
1957. A giant robot falls out of the sky and is befriended by a young boy in Maine. However, the US government proves less sympathetic – animated feature is out in UK cinemas from Friday, December 17th, 1999
This has all the hallmarks of classic fifties sci-fi outings – giant monster, small American town, paranoid government agent, mobilised militia. For those demanding still more, it has a single working mum and a sympathetic beat sculptor, neither of whom would be out of place in a period Roger Corman cheapie.
But you shouldn’t pigeonhole The Iron Giant by genre because a further two factors mark it out as very different. Freely adapted from Ted Hughes’ marvellous children’s book The Iron Man but given a decidedly American spin by director Brad Bird (cartoon TV series The Simpsons, 2 eps, 1990-91; creator of Family Dog, 1993), this is without doubt the animated film of the year and arguably the film of the year period. We’ve grown so used to the Disney blockbuster model – cute characters (and merchandise), hit songs – that anything else (this employs neither device) comes as a shock.
It’s a brave, commendable and must-see project from Warner Bros., whose previous theatrical animated productions (Space Jam, Joe Pytka, 1996; The King And I, Richard Rich, 1999) have fallen flat from trying too hard to match the kiddie fodder matrix.
Taking his lead from Ted Hughes’ tale, Bird never explains the origins of the giant metal man (voice: Vin Diesel) befriended by youngster Hogarth Hughes (voice: Eli Marienthal). Instead, he opens with the gargantuan’s descent through Earth’s atmosphere (past Sputnik) into the sea off the coast of Maine. From there, the director deftly introduces his small, local town of Rockwell and its characters, lets Hogarth discover the metal-munching monolith in the woods and starts to build up the boy’s relationship with the childlike giant.
The monster hungrily eats train tracks, learns from the boy this is wrong, then regurgitates the rails to repair them. Bird’s masterstroke comes with the giant’s growing self-awareness and the discovery that he is in fact a fighting machine. As the military move in to attack, the robot’s warrior circuitry kicks in while his conscience struggles to avoid devastating armed response.
What follows deserves a place not only in the pantheon of truly great animated features (as Hughes might possibly have hoped) but also in that of revisionist fifties SF (which he could surely never have imagined). Bird’s skill as a storyteller and his unique visual style constantly hold the attention, but more impressive still are his characterisations – the use of the Giant’s eyes and gestures (the very stuff of the animator’s art) to build up his relationship with new-found friend Hogarth, the understanding behind such diverse characters as a single working mother (voice: Jennifer Aniston) struggling to raise a son, a government investigator of the unexplained (voice: Christopher McDonald), and a beat sculptor (voice: Harry Connick Jr.) working out of a scrap metal dealership (a paradise and perfect hideout for the metal-munching giant).
While children (including little ones) will love it, adults will admire the intelligence of the whole thing, which proves that animation can be far more intelligent than mere kiddie fodder. If he represents the shape of animation to come in the new Millennium, The Iron Giant is a welcome arrival indeed. A masterpiece, no less.
Voices of: Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel, James Gammon, Cloris Leachman, Christopher McDonald, John Mahoney, Eli Marienthal, M. Emmet Walsh.
The Iron Giant is out in UK cinemas from Friday, December 17th, 1999.
Trailer (2015):