Beautifully animated, enjoyable, meaningful movie

Rating: 10/10 (5 September 2000)

Having heard great things about The Iron Giant, I decided to get it myself and watch it. What I saw was a wonderful event of animation, with plenty of depth and imagination.
Animation has come a long way from the days of the old Looney Tunes and Disney cartoons, and now with The Iron Giant we have a seamless merging between traditional 2D animation and 3D animation, with the Giant being fully animated in 3D. The result was the most visually stunning animation I have seen in a while.
The Iron Giant had a great story to it (being based on the book by Ted Hughes), one that was meaningful and one that allowed interaction with the viewer to use their imagination (there are questions which are not answered, you really have to use your imagination). All the voice performances were exceptional, and really added to the characters in the film, instead of making them one-dimensional. The Giant in particular had a lot more emotion then you'd expect from a giant robot made from iron.
This is the best animated film I have seen since The Lion King, it had everything in it, from laughter to drama, from happiness to sadness (the ending brought tears to my eyes). This is an animated feature not only for kids, but for anyone of any age. It's a shame it wasn't given the exposure it deserved, it probably would have done a lot better at the box office. If you're a fan of animation, or you just want to see a great family film, you have to see this. I give it 10/10.