Iron Giant, The (1999)

reviewed by
Berge Garabedian


THE IRON GIANT
RATING: 5 /10 --> Not a Good Movie

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PLOT: A giant metal man falls from the sky and befriends a small town kid whose imagination and enthusiasm rank highly in his repertoire of qualities. Unfortunately for the friendly duo, the United States government of the 1950s does not take too well to "alien" beings, and attempts to violently get rid of the giant monster.

CRITIQUE: Hmmm...a serious animated movie with a message? Well, I'm sure it could work but this one sure didn't do much for me. The ending of this movie was nice with the deeper meaning and emotional touches, but for most of its run time I found myself bored, searching for something-anything, nice music, some humor or even a touch of romance or action, to make the film interesting to watch. It wasn't to be. This E.T.-type flick moved along at such a neutral pace that I kept wondering if anything interesting was ever going to happen! Well, nothing really did and since I don't consider myself much of a 50s connaisseur, or a sci-fi comic book enthusiast, there wasn't very much in this films' ho-hum story that engaged me in any way. Of course, matters weren't helped by the fact that the only so-called "bad guy" in the film was completely one-dimensional and that the animation was obviously not intended to impress. Think of it as an after school television cartoon program elongated to match the length of a full feature and that's pretty much all you have here. Much like the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, I am not exactly sure what all the hype about this movie is about either.

Review Date: November 20, 1999
Director: Brad Bird
Writer: Tim McCanlies
Producer: Allison Abbate
Actors: Eli Marienthal as Hogarth Hughes (voice)
Jennifer Aniston as Annie Hughes (voice)
Harry Connick Jr. as Dean McCoppin (voice)
Christopher McDonald as Kent Mansley (voice)
Genre: Animated
Year of Release: 1999
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(c) 1999 Berge Garabedian

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