Simply a masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10 (29 June 2017)

The Iron Giant is an animated film directed by Brad Bird. It is about a giant alien robot who landed on earth from outer space in the year 1957 and seems to have gotten amnesia. He meets and befriends a young boy named Hogarth, who shows the robot how to be a good person. While doing so, he must keep the robot safe from the public and especially from the U.S. government who is trying to track down what crashed on the planet.
I watched this movie at my local theater this week because it was only two dollars a seat and because I was very curious about this one and I left the theater very satisfied with my experience. I couldn't have liked this movie more if I tried. The critics don't lie with this one, it's a well-written, well-polished animated family masterpiece. It is something that both kids and adults can watch and enjoy wholeheartedly.
Staring with the animation, it uses a combination of both traditional animation and computer animation. Almost everything in the movie is traditionally animated and then we have the robot who is, at all times, computer animated. Surprisingly, the animators manage to blend in the robot with its surroundings perfectly. The animation doesn't feel out of place with either the 3D or traditional animation, which is a pretty amazing sight to see.
The overall feel to it felt out of the ordinary from what you would find in most modern animated movies outside of Disney and Pixar. I feel like a lot of other companies try too hard to make their animated movies part comedy nowadays. With this movie, there were some funny moments, but they didn't parade the movie entirely. Instead, they're replaced with emotionally swinging, powerful moments that give it a very mature feel. For a family movie, it is quite mature, it's one of those movies that's rated PG for a reason. It delves into some very sensitive topics that were and still are relevant to the movie's time period such as fear and prejudice as well as what could lie beyond our world. To further that it's a more mature film, it does have some adult humor and language.
I liked all the characters in the movie. I liked the simple, quirky and lonely boy that was Hogarth. Kent was a menacing, unsettling villain who always kept his watchful eye on the main character as two examples. My favorite character of them all has to be the titular character. He's a simple, yet deep and complex character. I won't go too in-dept on him since it would go into spoiler territory, but we do find out about his complexity much later which changes the mood of the movie.
Going blindly into this movie was a decision that I do not regret. The Iron Giant is a must watch for anyone who loves animated, movies or just wants a good movie experience. I don't think I found a single flaw or con with this movie when I watched it, it was an experience that I won't forget.
10/10