Ted Hugues would have been proud

Rating: Null/10 (3 August 1999)

I went to see the anime "The Iron Giant" last Sunday. This was 6,50$can extremely well spent and it was a very good surprise for me because, let's face it, the TV ads doesn't make it justice.
The characters are extremely well developed, although the villain tend to be the caricatural type, but, I insist, only him. All the others characters are sounds and credible. The story is simple enough to be understood by young children, and yet, at the same time, is complex enough to draw the parents into it. It is a good thing that "The Iron Giant" didn't go through the Disney studios because they would have destroy those two basic elements [characters + story] to "accommodate" their own simpleton standards.
Technically, even if the movie looks like having been made in the 1960s, it is not. The use of lights and shadows give it a real 3 dimensional look that wasn't seen before the computer effects. And contrary to the American version of "Godzilla", the giant doesn't change size from one scene to the other. Also, the use of the Japanese style [big eyes] help a lot to make the emotions go through each characters. Even the robot, which tells a lot by itself. By moments, you completely forget that the characters are "drawn"; they just become "real".
As for the humor, it was not tone down to little children. They were not the adult kind Ã -la-South-Park either. It was often satirical and you have to be at least 20-years-old to really understand some because of the history behind them. I had some tears twice because I laugh too hard in my seat. The look of the soldier at the end is an anthology piece alone.
I believe the creator of "The Iron Giant" died during the making of the movie, so he didn't saw the final product. He would have been proud. My greatest hope is that the sequel (if there is one as I hope) will keep this high level of quality in storytelling, characters, humor and audience-intelligentsia.
I cannot encourage you enough to go see it on a giant screen.