The Iron Giant (1999)

Hmmm, what to say...well.... it was really good. I've seen it several times, and I've enjoyed it immensely each time for different reasons.

Analytically I find the animation incredible. The characters are extremely alive and quite realistic, not because of incredible drawing, well, actually, yes: the way the characters are drawn, and animated, is incredible. From the jerking, swaying and swooshing of body parts to the magnificent and CONSISTENT use of eyes, eyebrows and cheekbones to show real emotions, it's definite that this movie is a masterpiece in terms of animation. The backgrounds are wonderfully lush, and evoke a wonderful sense of everything that shows fall for the beautiful season it is. I love animation, and I love good looking landscapes, so the artists behind this movie are making a fan out of me very quickly.

I admire (analytically) most of all the enormous apparance of little details in the film: the season sublty changes from fall to winter; the characters are always doing something, even if they aren't directly in focus (the best ad-libbing a director could dream of); I also think in some parts of the movie the little details actually become crucial to the movie's strength and validity (the time and setting of the story help it to make more sense, also, the "duck and cover" scene)

You know, I think it's amazing when sometimes a movie can move you so much, talking about it's good qualities seems like child's play. This is the kind of movie that you can watch over and over and take a long time to get sick of. We all have movies like that, very few can do that to us, but we have them. I'm realising as I write that I like this movie very much, because I've written two or three paragraphs and have not even started talking about the iron giant yet.

The animation and expression of emotion in the giant, who is a computer graphics animated character, a hundred feet tall and with a certain old time sci fi persona to him, equals and even surpasses it's traditionally animated companions. There were scenes in the movie that the giant almost made me cry because of his expressions. The director, Brad Bird I think, should earn good credit for his work bringing the giant to life. The giant was very organic and fluid, always animated and extremely alive, without really trying to be. After a while it obvious he's not your average rigid robot.

It's hard not to give away details when you write a lot, but thankfully I haven't really given anything away. I will say this...the movie is about not prejudging things you are unfamiliar with, big or small, and it's about doing what is right and not using gray areas and politics as an excuse not to do the right thing. The movie explores the strange concept of finding friendship, love, and innocence inbetween past guilts and prejudices. It is one of the most well rounded, enriching, thought provoking movies I have seen in my lifetime, and the best part is that it wasn't the visual effects that made me say that...something other feature animation companies have used a a string to lead me on for almost a decade. I feel like I just recovered from an extended brainwashing experiment. I've learned my lesson. No longer will movies that use stunning graphics to redeem themselves be an interest to me. Rather I will watch movies for the messages they give and the depth those movies have. If anything Brad Bird must have tried to make the giant as close in simplicity to the regular animated characters as possible, because you CANNOT tell the difference between CG and traditional in this movie. Exceptional stuff.

I can't imagine anyone I know not liking this movie. I've shown it to a LOT of people, college students mostly, of all races and religions, with different prides and prejudices, the result, amazingly, always seems to be the same: I have some after movie comments here, and I quote:"Wow!" ; "That was NICE!"; "That was SO...GOOD!" ;"That giant is crucial, dog!" ;"It was good...yeah...I liked it!",; and "Dang man, that joint TIGHT!". If you actually read this review all the way, that's nice. Now forget everything I bumbled about and go see this movie, that way you can spent less time writing your own review than you did reading mine.