Surprisingly incredible

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2012)

Before director Brad Bird hit the big time directing acclaimed Pixar films The Incredibles and Ratatouille, he directed a little animated film for Warner Brothers called The Iron Giant. It's a story set in the Red Scare era about a giant robot that crash lands on Earth. A young kid named Hogarth happens to find this robot and the two quickly develop a strong and powerful friendship. However, Hogarth must keep his giant friend safe as a snooping government worker named Kent tries to find out what Hogarth is hiding and whether or not it's dangerous (ie. built by the Russians). This is an incredibly moving, incredibly powerful film with a lot more to it than meets the eye.
The Iron Giant starts out simple enough. It's a story we've seen before. A young boy befriends a larger than life person or thing, highlighting the innocent and non judgemental eye of a child. But this film makes this recognizable motif so powerful and so emotionally enthralling. It hits emotional chords that send chills up and down your body as the film roots itself into your heart. This is a shockingly poignant film with so much heart and a constant thread of sincerity running through it, despite it being a cartoon.
This leads me to the other impressive thing about the film is the fact that it's a cartoon. You would expect it to be more in the league of some of the sillier and more light hearted Disney films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or 101 Dalmations. Instead, The Iron Giant is much more complex and is more mature and intelligent than these films. And the cartoon element also makes it a visual spectacle that is simultaneously larger than life and down to Earth. This sincere parallelism makes the film entertaining and exciting as well as real as the story and characters connect on a very human level, even including and especially the Iron Giant himself, who proves to be more loving and more compassionate than most of the humans in this film. The emphatic realism of this film is enough to bring a tear to one's eye, and indeed it does.
Don't underestimate The Iron Giant because of its simple cartoon exterior. It has a heart and a brain, and it has a surprising level of poignancy to it. This is a truly fantastic film that breaks new ground and proves just how human and just how emotionally superb a cartoon can be. This is a film that can't be missed, and must be experienced by anyone with a soul.