Brilliant movie

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2000)

But it should have been longer. I distinctly remember an entirely different ending in the book. I also do not remember any 1950's communist paranoia in the book or the character of Hogarth being so young. But the changes do not harm the movie and the ending this film has is just fine. There are obviously no opening credits to the film so guessing the voices is cool fun. But it's impossible to guess who plays the Iron Giant.
But the Iron Giant himself is a wonderful hero. It's cool to watch him learn simple things and having him eat cars is a neat little characteristic. I like when he's bored and he plays with the hood with one of the cars in the junkyard. You cannot dislike the Iron Giant.
I think it was a wise and creative decision to make this cartoon in 2.35:1. Most cartoons by Disney are in 1.85:1 or even worsein 1.66:1. Warner did a great job with this movie. These days it seems that Dreamworks SKG and Disney seem to do all the feature length animations. But Warner beat them all in 1999 with this movie.
My only gripe is that it should have been longer. At 87 minutes, it's all over too quick. But it's still cool.