Heavy Metal

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2001)

It is encouraging...and surprising that a film like this was ever made. It is obviously very family-oriented. It focusses on a bygone era. It has no mass destruction, no death, no profanity, no sex. It tells the simple story of a boy with an imagination and kind heart who befriends an Iron Giant from outer space. The story is simple, yet says so much about people and fear of those things that are different. The film, however, is just not for children, it is for adults as well. It breathes nostalgia of a time when the life of a child was full of science fiction films of the fifties, great comic books like Superman, and the seeming impending doom of the atomic bomb. This film is exquisitely animated in an animation we seldom see anymore. The characters are richly drawn and the voice-overs are perfect in both timing and choice of artists. There is also a gentle, sometime low-brow humour throughout the film that helps bring back the memory of what is was like to be a child. The friendship between the metal man and the young boy is poignant, funny, and tearful. Chris MacDonald does an exceptional job as the voice of the government man more afraid of the inexplicable and the unknown than of his own personal corruption. A funny, very moving film!