About a Machine Man

Rating: 10/10 (7 September 2000)

Without doubt one of the best films of the past ten years, animated or not, IRON GIANT is a fabulous love letter to 1950s science fiction b-movies and b-fiction. The central figure, the alien robot construct, is as grand and cool a physical design for a robot as ever put on film; but then this is perfectly balanced with the character of the robot, a being who is sentient and loyal, as he understands it.
The robot, befriended by a young boy who is himself a SF b-movie junkie during the reactionary '50s time period, engages the boy and the boy's beatnik confidant with his trust, allowing the film to briskly detail the Giant's advances, as he comes to understand his own nature, the possibility of becoming a deadly weapon and a "monster" from the boy's comic books, and his understanding of heroism and love for his friends. In a world which is dangerous for the robot, and he in turn a danger to it because he is built to destroy, rather than love, the Giant's story of coming to the realization of what and who he truly is has a poignancy that is simply amazing. It is a story of redemption as great as the classic monster icons that have inspired this movie, such as the deformed Quasimodo of Notre Dame's saving of the beautiful, wrongly-accused Esmeralda who will be executed unless he protects her, even if he must die for her, loving the unattainable beauty he loves but can never have, or Frankenstein's Monster destroying himself and his newly-created Bride of Frankenstein because they are, in the Monster's opinion, a vile affront to nature.
The Giant too realizes he must do what he has to, in order not to be a monster. It is one of the grand moments in cinema when the robot faces his fate, and becomes more than human in the process. An amazing film worth seeing many, many times.