Even a Geezer Likes It

Rating: Null/10 (24 June 2015)

After so many responses, there's not much left to say. Except that as a geezer who lived through the 1950's, I enjoyed seeing a send-up of the paranoia of the time. If it wasn't commies menacing us, it was aliens in Roswell, NM. Plus, it may seem like a joke now, but Duck and Cover didn't when annihilation could come any moment from The Bomb. Ordinarily I wouldn't watch an animated feature since I grew up thinking that meant cartoon. However, this edition was recommended, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Strange how unreal characters quickly become real.
Anyway, this film reminded me of a classic in my day called The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). Except the gentlemanly Klaatu and the laser-eyed robot Gort, the two main alien visitors of Stood Still, are combined here into the single character of the Iron Giant. However, in both movies, the adversity to be overcome is a paranoid American defense establishment. That was a pretty darn touchy topic for a Cold War 1951. The moral here seems something like getting over our cultural hostility to The Other, whatever form that might take. Here, of course, it's a giant metal robot, whose goodness turns out to embody something eternal, as its parts survive destruction. All in all, the animated story amounts to a happy surprise and a compelling one even for a geezer like me.