I have loved comic books for as long as I can remember. I’ve turned my favorite hobby into my livelihood as a comic book store owner for the last seven years. I can pinpoint moments of inspiration over my 32 years but I will predict one thing. Somewhere as I type this, there are preteens watching The Iron Giant. This movie will change their lives. It may be in a subtle way. It may not take place for many years. But this movie is so well done, so incredible, that it will inspire children to follow some calling to a life in comics, animation, or science fiction. The Iron Giant is that good. My words that follow cannot do it justice, but here I try... Flawless animation is perfectly blended with a classic story about a boy and his robot. WB captures the feel of the Batman animated series with extremely effective blacks and whites as well as amazing use of lighting. The screenplay is outstanding with well defined characters who you will immediately cheer for. 9-year old Hogarth Hughes (wonderfully voiced by Eli Marienthal) is 100 % boy, from his scruffy hair to his chipped front tooth (a brilliant touch, by the way). Mom, Dean, even the stereotypical G-man Kent McCoppin are all well written. The feel of the 1950’s is also captured in a nutshell. Little touches like soda shops, badly acted sci-fi movies, bomb scare propaganda films, and baseball and football pennants (Hogarth’s favorite teams are the Red Sox and Lions) are brilliantly inserted and add to the realism. And then there are the comic books. Oh God, the comic books. As if it hadn’t already happened (it had), director Brad Bird (a veteran of The Simpsons) and screenwriter Tim McCanlies go and introduce comic books to the mix and by doing so reach out of the screen and rip my heart out of my body. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When I was 15, I wouldn’t DARE admit I cried during E.T. 17 years later...of course The Iron Giant made me cry. Forgive my melodrama, but I was 10-years old for 81 minutes this afternoon. Now, 12-hours later, I cannot for the life of me think of one single problem I have with the Iron Giant. Is the movie too anti guns and government? When taking into consideration the time period, I don't think so. What we have here is an instant classic and a movie I am so proud exists. At the beginning of 1999 I stated that I would be disappointed if The Phantom Menace wasn't my Favorite Film of The Year. Eight months later, I'm happy I was wrong. I would give the world to have a son that I could share this gem with. For those of you that do, grab him and run immediately to The Iron Giant and experience a part of your life you will both never forget.

10-point scale rating: 10

Absolutely fantastic movie! The best thing I've seen in quite a while for the kids especially. It is entertaining, has no smart mouthed brats, includes great messages about friendship, loyalty and sacrifice. Superb flick!

I am a 40 year old man with a son thats 6, a daughter thats 9 and a wife that hates animated movies. Everyone of us loved this movie. I realized I had forgotten how good a movie can be. See this movie now, in the theatre, with other people around you.

There are so few movies, yes even animated movies, that are redeeming these days...finding a film with so much beauty and truth in such a simple, pure delivery is not just refreshing but awe-inspiring. Go and see it now, before you have to resort to video. Take your children, take your whole neighborhood of children. Don't worry about the child in yourself. If today's jaded and machine-gunned pace of life has you out of touch with what makes anything seem worthwhile, this simple little parable film can help you back. If you ever were a child, it will rekindle that simplicity, faith and wonder. But see it now, in the theatre, because the very comic-book styling of the artwork begs the big screen. Disney, SKB, take notice. THIS is what animated film should be. Not the formulas that Disney "Epics" have become. Remember how breathtaking, heart-rending and teaching "The Lion King" was? The torch has been passed to "The Iron Giant". Hurry with the sequel, please. Finally, if you enjoy your position as a skeptic and critic, then there's plenty to analyze here. "The Iron Giant" provides lots of grist for the overly-entertained, adult thinker's mill. The story works in the purest form of a morality play- you can write your cocktail hour thesis on the continuation of the Bambi Myth. If there is a flaw anywhere in this film, it is the espousal of this hollywood misrepresentation of hunters and hunting. You CAN be anti-gun without being anti-hunting. But here, sadly, hunters are portrayed as one-dimensional killers in one of the film's sequences critical to the blossoming of the Robot's understanding of himself, as well as the alien world he has mistakenly dropped into. Had "The Iron Giant" been bold enough to address the reality of hunting as an honorable endeavor- if the two hunters could have had a talk with the robot, then this movie would have been completely groundbreaking. But I split hairs. At least the animals in this film didn't talk. Or sing. ALl very different from animated features you are used to. Go Now, Go Often, Don't Miss. This is not a movie, it is a treasure.

"The Iron Giant" has all the spirit and all the heart of this year's Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation. And while that festival was dedicated to showing some of the most thrilling animated shorts created in the last few years, "The Iron Giant" is the feature-length equivalent.

I have nothing but love for this movie. While some animated features may throw you some great animation technology, "The Iron Giant" excels exactly where it is supposed to: story. (Though comparing to Tarzan may be bad, I have nothing but respect for that movie as well)

The film is set in the era of the late 50's, right at the time at the launch of the Russian Sputnik shuttle into space and the world's fear of "The Bomb". We focus on young Hogarth (voiced nicely by Eli Marenthal), a boy who is just like any other boy: full of imagination, curiosity, and never believed by his parents. One day he stumbles across a huge hunk of metal that turns out to be a towering Robot that eats metal.

The majority of the film's conflict is how young Hogarth makes friends and how having someone like this will impact on his society. I felt a lot of "E.T" in this story, but that's ok. I think that the main conflict everyone can identify with, because I am sure that we all had an unusual friend that has been looked down upon by another.

Director Brad Bird, who has been a consultant on The Simpsons, wonderfully brings this story to the screen without dumbing it down for today's ignorant audiences. When a movie tells a story as well as this, perfectly captures a time and its people, and gives you strength and hope in an animated medium, it is a miracle. "The Iron Giant" makes you care.

Rating: **** out of ****

Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Sound: DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS
Length: 86 minutes

By Jason Whyte jason-whyte@home.com ICQ-16733922

An amination fantasy, "Iron Giant" tells the story of a friendship between a little boy and a huge giant robot from outer space. This film pays tribute to the science fiction movies of the 1950's.