How can this movie be so good?

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 1999)

I went to The Iron Giant knowing nothing about it. I did not see any trailers and avoid TV (why watch the boob tube when you can spend the time at the movies?), so I knew only that it was about a giant robot. I have had a thing for giant robots since childhood, which usually results in me going to see crap like "Robot Jox". I am also a fan of films that satirize the '50s.
The first few minutes of the film established that it was going to be a superbly animated film, if nothing else, although I've seen it twice on two different theatres so far and both time the first scenes in the small town were jerky and out of focus...luckily whatever caused this was not apparent for the remainder of the film. The first minutes up through the scary (for kids) scene at the power distribution center in the woods resulted in many younger kids in the audience screaming to leave the theatre. But then, even they were caught up and were very quiet for the rest of it. PARENTS: this is probably not a good film for kids under 5 years old (empirical observation).
Other reviews have pretty well covered the material, but I will highlight what worked for me. 1) anti Disney-formula 2) no songs 3) no cute animals or sidekicks 4) fine artwork 5) inspired storytelling & script 6) straight forward yet dead-on vocal work from the actors 7) amazing character development for the robot 8) it made me weep from both emotion of the story and joy at the quality 9) the audience was not distracting since they were all totally absorbed in the storytelling 10) great satire on many levels
What did I dislike? I hate the simplistic 'guns are evil' concept. The scene where the hunters run off after killing the deer, yet the kid forgets them and instructs the robot that it is the gun on the ground that did the killing. Luckily, the film corrects this later on, establishing that the real problem is with the foolish people who want to shoot anything they don't understand (the robot in this case), while the robot who is clearly designed to be a fearsome weapon is able to gain a soul through his lucky interaction with a totally unprejudiced boy and use himself not as a killing machine but rather as a heroic character. This is one small gripe for one really fine film.