The Iron Giant

It's been years since I've seen this, and in the meantime its reputation has growth so much that now that it's pretty much considered a classic. It was always a cult fave back when I first saw it, but it's become outright beloved in the meantime. So if I do one of my typical Matt Zimmer good and bad reviews taking only the film's quality and my impression of it into account, I could ruffle some feathers. My opinion is very favorable, and I can't think of anything at the outset of the review I'm going to nitpick to death, but I am aware that when I review classic beloved movies that I could inadvertently offend people. If you love this movie unreservedly, and find no faults with it, that's fine. As such I want you to take whatever I say about the film with 25 years of distance with a grain of salt.

The first thing I must bring up, and I don't know if anyone else got this, is that the film is unintentionally relevant to what has been going on in our country for the 6 or so years. The movie's brilliance is that it tackles a major political problem (Cold War paranoia), and since history repeats itself eventually, the movie is suddenly as subversive as if it had been made in 1955 instead of 1998. And speaking as someone who really dislikes Brad Bird's political messages in his cartoons (the Objectivist nonsense in The Incredibles is SO damn creepy and offensive that I think that movie is inappropriate for children) I think it's kind of surprising the film has an anti Red Scare stance. What this this tells me is that Bird is neither a Communist or an Objectivist. He just likes exploring different political issues and letting the audiences come to their own conclusion. Personally, I think he led the audience to the wrong conclusion in The Incredibles. But I felt his moral here about people in charge doing what is worst for everyone due to pride and vanity really struck a nerve with how things are currently working in this country. And I will not dismiss the fun stuff with Hogarth and the Giant during the first two thirds of the picture, or "You can fly? You can fly!" But truly it's the transformation of Mansley into one of the most reprehensible screen villains in history that I think sets the film apart.

I could negatively compare the film's animation to Disney all I want. Mansley is what would have happened if Gaston from Beauty And The Beast were an actual person instead of a broad cartoon caricature. I recall during my last review of Beauty And The Beast being unimpressed with that specific character, and even MORE disgusted with the formerly harmless-seeming townspeople who followed him, but I find Mansley's disgusting behavior far more credible. There really is no good reason for the Townspeople to follow Gaston who acts like he's an expert on the Beast when he knows nothing about him. What's messed up about Mansley is that the people following his lead aren't gullible idiots. He outright lies and says Dean told him the robot killed a kid. And if the army attacks the Robot after that, that's reasonable. And the thing that impresses me most about how absolutely despicable Mansley is, is that you don't get that sense from him earlier in the movie. Something in him broke from the beginning to the end, and I half think we are watching two separate people, one who is an inconsiderate jerk, and one who has been driven to madness and monstrousness. I think the turning point was him cornering and threatening Hogarth and his mom. Everything past that point was done from the perspective of a criminal who doesn't actually care about right or wrong, and is just malicious in his pursuits beyond all reason. It makes sense, him being the Cold Warrior that he is, which is why that aspect of the movie spoke so much to me.

I'm going to both insult and compliment the animation. Elephant in the room: While I am very sad Warner Bros was forced to close their 2-D animation studio after Osmosis Jones bombed, the truth was, they were not in it for the long haul the way Dreamworks decided to be. I am aware the movie is 25 years old. But I am also aware of how breathtaking otherwise merely passable Disney films from that era looked. The film probably ran out of money at some point. The end titles being white block letters on a black screen is a cost cutting measure that Disney would not have been forced to do in 1998.

All this being said and equal, in a very interesting way, I kind of like the animation more. The character animation and facial expressions are all amazing in a way the blandness of Disney and Dreamsworks 2-D stuff can never manage. The characters all, well, LOOK different, instead of sharing the same basic Disney designs with different genders and haircuts. Hogarth's body type is entirely unlike Dean's, for example, and the various townsfolk during the movie each have an interesting look that animates and expresses amazingly. The truth is, the movie might have cost less money to make than other big studio animated films from this era. But they focused on 100% the right things to animate memorably and correctly.

I mentioned I might take an unpopular stand or two in this review. And I thought of something that might put me on your poo list. I was not crazy about Hogarth, at least not to start off the movie, and definitely not until his friendship with the Giant. I think the thing in beginning of the movie that summed up the character best for me was when his mother almost looks like she's going to burst into tears over his enthusiasm, and she looks at him seriously instead and says, "Hogarth. I'm not in the mood." And I felt for her in that moment, and greatly disliked her son, because it told me this kid was impossible to live with, and refused to ever shut it off. If there is one thing in the movie I don't like, it's the fact that Hogarth is treated like WALL-E, and is in his set persona throughout the entire film. If Hogarth was granted a little maturity and wisdom as a part of his character growth, I might have liked him more. But I understand that wasn't what the movie chose to explore. But while I find the fact that WALL-E doesn't grow as a person fine because the character is already awesome, I am less impressed Hogarth stays the same because I find the character tiresome. His poor damn mother. I should not ever be thinking that of any given precocious kid in any given family movie. But I do here.

I liked the movie a lot, and in fact found its themes very topical. More so 25 years later than they were in 1998. And the fact that Brad Bird basically did this combo of a beautiful boyhood coming of age story mixed with a sci-fi 50's cold war paranoia horror film as a tribute to his late sister is a pretty cool thing too, and speaks to loss and grief as well. I thought it was pretty great. Although if I didn't, I wouldn't expect to change YOUR opinion about it. ****1/2.