Succeeds brilliantly as entertainment...fine animation...

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2006)

There was a preoccupation with paranoia about invasion from aliens that permeated all the science fiction in the '50s. This story builds on that fear by giving us an E.T. sort of encounter with an alien, in this case a super-sized piece of metal called THE IRON GIANT, who is saved from extinction by a little boy who pulls the "Off" switch when it appears the Giant is about to be electrocuted.
It's stunning right from the opening scenes, animated with fresh originality and voiced by some expert actors (HARRY CONNICK, JR., VAN DIESEL, CLORIS LEACHMAN and the little boy voiced by ELI MARIENTHAL).
Not only is the story engrossing, but there's a humanization of "the creature from outer space" that defies description. The animators manage to make his thought process apparent with minimal dialog and you can really feel for his emotions when he is asked to perform a noble act (at the climax) in order to save mankind from a fate worse than death.
There's an effective background score by Michael Kamen, without the songs that seem to irritate some devotees of animated films, and it moves briskly at a pleasing pace that should keep young and old riveted to the sometimes magical events.
Briskly entertaining and well worth watching--among the best of the animated films based on pure fantasy. The very expert voice-overs make the characters seem amazingly real.