Outstanding on all levels!

Rating: 10/10 (18 November 2009)

The Iron Giant was a beautiful, funny and touching movie, that is one of the best non-Disney animated movies I have seen along with The Prince of Egypt, The Secret of NIMH, Watership Down and Castle of Cagliostro. There wasn't a single thing I hated about the movie, for me it was outstanding on every level. The animation was absolutely gorgeous, with stunning colourful backgrounds and brilliant character animation especially on the Iron Giant himself. The music by Michael Kamen was consistently excellent, and never overpowered the story. In fact at times it even enhanced the drama. And the film has a beautiful message not to mention a sweet story. The characters were delightful, Hogarth isn't annoying at all and the Iron Giant isn't scary in the slightest. Strictly speaking he has to be one of the most gentle and poignant characters in an animated film. There are plenty of effective scenes like the explosive climax and the scene with the dead deer is a real tear jerker. I will admit I was worried initially when I saw the voice cast, but everybody involved did a superb job. Jennifer Aniston and Harry Connick Jnr were perfect, in their most understated performances. Both get stick about being untalented, but for me their vocal contributions in this film suggests otherwise, while Christopher MacDonald almost steals the film as the FBI agent. Eli Marienthal is very sweet and likable as Hogarth too, and watch out for John Mahoney and Cloris Leachman. All in all, an outstanding film, that if you mind me saying so is the best animated film of 1999 and one of the best films of that year too. I may be wrong but I do think it is highly underrated on IMDb. 10/10 Bethany Cox