The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant released in 1999, is an animated film adaptation of the 1968 novel the Iron Man (published in the USA as The Iron Giant) by Ted Hughes. The book was previously adapted as a musical/concept album by Pete Townsend of The Who. The film starred Vin Diesel as The Iron Giant, Jennifer Aniston as Annie Hughes, Harry Connick Jr as Dean, Christopher McDonald as Kent Mansley, and Eli Marienthal as Hogart Hughes. The film is set in the fictional town of Rockwell Maine (both as a callback to Norman Rockwell, who much of the art concept is inspired by, and to the towns of Rockland and Rockport Maine which is the region of the state that the film is set. The film was a box office failure, due mostly to a failure to promote and market the film prior to release. The reason that Warner Bros. did not properly spend money to promote the film is due to the failure of Quest For Camelot, and Warner Bros did not view animated films as a profitable or worth their while. However when the test screenings received the highest reviews in the past 15 years, they realized the mistake they had made in not properly promoting and marketing the film, and they wanted to push back the release, but the director pointed out that they had over 2 years to have promoted it, but they didn't see it's worth. When the film was released it failed to perform and was rather quickly pulled from theaters due to low performance. The film though a box office failure what a huge critical success, and quickly became a cult classic. Also for being a box office failure, the film won many awards and became an instant classic beloved by viewers of all ages. I honestly don't remember this film being released, it was so overshadowed by far inferior films of the time, demonstrating the power of marketing and promotion. The film itself, as well as the book are set in Cold War America in 1957, and had many subversive political themes. The film uses many themes and elements common of films of the area, almost mocking the pro-war propaganda like films and television of the era. There are elements of the Norman Rockwell style idealistic America, with Hogart's mother being reminiscent of June Cleaver, even much of the music is very reminiscent of the era, creating the tone of the film. The animation is beautifully done, most of it being traditional forms of animation and cell-shading, with the Iron Giant himself being done in computer animation. There are many examples of this mixing of styles absolutely failing, but in this film it actually works out perfect. A similar mixture was attempted in films like the Dragon Lance film, where it looked atrocious, but here it was done very tasteful, and worked absolutely beautiful. The mix of animation also harkens to the fact that the film takes place in the traditional 1950s setting, with a futuristic alien robot that comes from the sky which is represented by the classic animation of the sets and the people, with the futuristic CG animation of the Robot. The animation is clean and smooth, and feels like a classic animated feature that would fit in the time it was set, but also feels like it fits well in the modern age. Again this could have turned out atrociously awful based on past examples of attempting this, but it worked really well. This mixture of animation styles also worked for some anime shows of the time as well, such as the Final Fantasy Unlimited series and Appleseed, but hadn't been super successful in US animations up to this point. Some critics compare the animation and depth of story to the Studio Ghibli films which were finding a lot of love with American audiences around this time as well. The casting was also really well done, though when I first heard that Vin Diesel was the voice of the Iron Giant, I was a bit skeptical, but honestly, he ended up being perfectly cast for the role. The actors all did their voices perfectly and really brought their characters to life. I also cannot give enough praise to young Eli Marienthal as Hogarth, he was so perfectly cast for that role, and played it so well. Jennifer Aniston also brought a perfect level of wholesomeness to the role of Hogarth's mom, she played the part so well and believable. Also well known actor Christopher McDonald was so perfectly cast as Kent Mansley, the government agent sent to investigate the strange happenings in this small coastal Maine town, he wonderfully plays this bumbling idiot government agent that tries too hard to be friendly to the people. In 2015 the film was released as an extended remastered version, that added more than 2 minutes to the films run-time, including a scene of The Iron Giant's dream, which was cut and unfinished due to how dark and disturbing the scene was, there were a few other scenes either added or expanded as well. This is the version that I watched for this review, on the DVD I have it has both versions, and I wanted the more complete version for this. Would I recommend this film? Yes, this film is a must see for all ages, and I highly recommend it. This is great film to set down and watch with the whole, family, and should be placed high on everyone's must-see list. It is great to see a beautiful film that is still largely animated by hand, and that is a beautiful art type that I hope we never lose. This film is a classic beloved by many for good reason, and if you have not seen it, then I highly recommend checking out. If you have seen it, it is always a good time to re-watch it.