The Iron Giant (PG) *** 1/2 Featuring the voices of Jennifer Aniston, Eli Marienthal Directed by Brad Bird A Review by Frankie Paiva
Being released on the same weekend as five other new movies The Iron Giant is and will become one of the best films you are not likely to see. It's a shame that such a critically acclaimed movie can't do well at the box office, but the public likes it's mainstream trash.
Hogarth Hughes is an adventurous young boy living in Rockwell, a cozy seaside town in Maine. It's 1957 and Sputnik has just been sent into orbit by the Russians, so when a crazed drunk is out on his boat and sees what he calls a metal monster the townspeople joke around with him at first. When cars start getting eaten, and power lines destroyed, the people begin to wonder.
When Kent Mansley (a government agent) comes to investigate he discovers Hogarth's fake gun near the power plant and questions him about it, he says he doesn't know anything but Mansley figures he knows more than he's letting on. The truth is, Hogarth is hiding the robot at the local scrapyard where Dean McCoppin, the owner, is keeping him hidden in a shed. He's beginning to form a bond with the metal man and doesn't want to see him hurt. When Kent discovers that there is a robot, he is scared it's from another country and is going to annihilate us all, and he sends for reinforcements.
While bearing the strong resemblance to E.T., the film is still in a class of it's own. Finally, an animated film with no songs, no fake love stories, and no stupid sidekicks. Instead this is a wonderful film with a good message, (putting in the fact that guns actually kill people is a great message for a children's film) plus the film is filled with lots of gags and jokes aimed directly at adults too.
The film has received horrible box office earnings, and is likely to be put with other critically loved comedies such as Rushmore, Election, Go, and Dick. This is a magical film that can be viewed again and again. So what are you waiting for? Go out and see this film now! Don't delay, call MoviePhone and get tickets for The Iron Giant, which gets *** 1/2 stars.
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews