Visual style: 10......Story: 3

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 1999)

One of the many rave reviews posted on this website contains the comment: "I could watch the film time and again just for the animation." In my opinion, it is the beautiful visual style ALONE that makes this film work and makes it enjoyable. Had the animation and design been as bland and pedestrian as the recently released "The King and I", few movie-goers would be as fond of the film. In fact, I think it would be a bomb.
The characters are certainly likeable, but too one-dimensional to rise above being mere character "types". We learn virtually nothing about them, other than what they are up to in the present moment. It's as if they have no existence, no thoughts, no life at all other than what we happen to be seeing up there on the screen. There is no depth to them that would suggest that their lives and their world extends beyond the edge of the frame.
There's the precocious boy (Hogarth) that knows more than the grown-ups, the flustered but loving Mom who tries to understand her mischievous son, the friendly adult (Dean) who's really young at heart and serves as an ally to the boy, and on and on. And how convenient that Hogarth lives on a farm where there's a big barn, suitable for storing a large robot. How convenient that Dean works in an iron-filled junk yard and makes art out of iron--choices that come in very handy when one has a large iron robot to contend with.
What I'm objecting to in this film is what I see as a lack of fresh ideas in the story and the script. Clever, original thought has been sacrificed (as it usually is) for the same old cliches. As a result, there were almost no surprises in this film. Young people who aren't as familiar with the cliches will have a ball, I'm sure. And adults who enjoy re-visiting the cliches that are comfortably familiar will love it, too. But for those who want to be impressed with new perspectives, or delighted with clever surprises and unexpected turns in the story, this film will not satisfy.