This is a real science fiction film.

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 1999)

This comment contains very general, minor spoilers.
This is a real science fiction film for a change. Star Wars, for all of its mind-blowing special effects, is just pulp magazine nonsense. And Star Trek, besides being nonsense, seems to have degenerated into a cloying soap opera. But _The Iron Giant_ is a wonderful example of the "boy finds strange alien artifact, boy nearly sacrifices himself to save strange alien artifact, boy is saved by self-sacrificing strange alien artifact" variety.
This is also a beautiful film. The animation is as good as anything the Disney Studios have turned out, the character design is more interesting and the story is better than anything Disney has managed to come up with in years. And, it is an animated film, supposedly meant for children (though I am sure most adults will enjoy it thoroughly), that is not a musical! Hurrah!
Since the world has not come to an end, we can only hope more studios follow suit in upcoming animation projects. (Don't misunderstand, I am all for songs where appropriate, but I have become incredibly weary of songs being shoe-horned into every feature length animated film ever made in the US, just because "that's the way eveyone else does it.")