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This animated movie version of the classic Ted Hughes book
'The Iron Man' is action packed fun for both children and adults
with its snappy animation and clever satire of Cold War paranoia.
The story runs along similar lines to E.T. (although 'The Iron
Man' book predates the Spielberg movie by almost 20 years) with
the metallic man falling to Earth from outer space, losing his
memory, and befriending a small boy, Hogarth Hughes (voiced
by Eli Marienthal). Hogarth saves the giant from electrocution
at a power station, teaches him some words of English, and helps
to keep him out of trouble. Trouble arrives primarily in the
form of a suspicious government agent who upon discovering the
giant, assumes him to be some sort of Soviet or alien weapon
and seeks to have him destroyed.
This is a classic story of childhood innocence coming up against
the suspicion and paranoia of adults. This movie makes the most
of its 1957 setting by exploiting the paranoia that existed
in this time of anything foreign that might be evil, different,
or communist. Remember that this was the year that the then
mysterious Russian satellite Sputnik was launched and a time
when the use of nuckear weapons had become a reality.
This film also features the voices of Jennifer Aniston as Hogarth's
mother and Harry Connick jr as the supercool junkyard owner
who helps Hogarth to hide the giant and also provides a source
of food to appease the big guy's appetite for anything metallic.
Vin Diesel supplies the bass tones of the giant's limited but
developing vocabulary.
There are some nice scenes through out the movie, all building
to a suitably stirring ending. It is an unfortunate fact of
modern movie marketing that, like 1998's Antz, The Iron Giant
will never be big box office draw with young audiences because
of the lack of merchandising tie ins (compare to the likes of
A Bug's Life or Tarzan).
Not a bad movie. You could certainly do much worse than take
your kids to see it.
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