# Iron Giant, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    THE IRON GIANT
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
    RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

Welcome back to yesteryear. A time when a boy and his robot could take center stage in their own cartoon adventure without benefit of wisecracking animals. When one could use the word wholesome as a compliment without any satirical or negative connotations. An era when adult strangers cheerfully and without derision refer to youngsters as buckaroo, slugger, tiger and chief.

Set in the small town of Rockwell (think Norman Rockwell), Maine, THE IRON GIANT takes place in 1957, a famous period in our nation's history. At the height of the cold war, the kids are having fun watching hokey, science-fiction television shows at home and comically serious duck-and-cover films at school.

One night, 9-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) finds out that someone has made a metal meal of his rooftop antenna. Following a trail through the forest, he ends up meeting and saving the life of a giant robot from space, which he calls the Iron Giant (Vin Diesel). "It's the greatest discovery since television, I guess," he proudly declares.

This lovable hunk of hardware is drawn as a homage to what we thought of robots back then. The head on his 100-foot body is a little too small, his mechanisms are more mechanical than electrical and he possesses certain special powers that even he doesn't seem to know about. Most of all, he has these awesome sounds. When he walks, there is the clunk of huge, hollow metal cylinders hitting the ground, as if the Tin Man from THE WIZARD OF OZ had been crossed with Godzilla. Once the gentle giant learns to speak, his precious, raspy voice sounds like it comes from deep within an empty, metal well.

"Mom, you won't believe this," Hogarth tells his mother (Jennifer Aniston). "Something just ate our antenna." Yes, he's right. She doesn't, which is, of course, the traditional adult response.

When one of the locals reports a sighting of the alien to "the government," Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald), a square shooter with a long, pointed jaw and a pipe, shows up to investigate. "While you're snoozing in your jammies, back in Washington we're wide awake and worried," the humorously supercilious Kent lectures Hogarth.

The story is filled with good-spirited fun as when the robot decides to join Hogarth by trying a cannonball dive into the lake. This causes a Tsunami of a wave that wipes out Hogarth's older friend, Dean McCoppin, lounging nearby on the shore.

Dean, voiced by Harry Connick Jr., is one of the more unusual characters to grace such a story. A take-off on famous rebel James Dean, Dean is a laid-back beatnik artist, who runs a junkyard in order to collect enough raw material to create his metal sculptures.

The movie, which dares to spend more time with tenderness than slapstick, has a wonderfully touching ending. One could dream of a world in which there were more good kids' movies like this one -- ones with simple but endearing charms that warm the heart. Motion pictures can and should be about more than special effects and gross humor. THE IRON GIANT is a start.

THE IRON GIANT runs 1:26. It is rated PG for a few cuss words -- as in "What the hell?" -- that are clearly thrown in for the sole purpose of avoiding a G rating. Only some of the scary images might briefly frighten the youngest viewers. In our packed audience, filled with kids of all ages, none seemed afraid.

My son Jeffrey, age 10, thought it was a "really sweet movie" and gave it ** 1/2. The only part he didn't like was that they never explained where the robot came from.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com

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