My 550th Review: The Iron Giant · 9:16pm April 6th
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
What is this? Another achievement made by yours truly? How wonderful! This is now officially my 550th review overall! That’s right, 550 reviews—including movie reviews, TV show reviews, episode reviews, and so on. This just makes me happy knowing how far I’ve come in this journey and seeing a lot of you enjoying my reviews regardless of different opinions we may have.
To celebrate this milestone, I am about to review one of the most beloved children’s animated movies of all time: Warner Bros’ “The Iron Giant” released in 1999.
To be honest with you all, I’ve never seen this movie before until somewhere around last year and a half or so. To prepare myself for this review, I rewatched it just a few days ago and see if it still holds up.
And of course it does! I can see why so many people regard this as one of the most iconic and memorable animated movies ever made. In fact, it is so ingrained in pop culture that it undoubtedly inspired future movies to follow its similar storyline and themes.
“The Iron Giant” is about a boy who discovers a giant sentient being made of iron. He befriends it as he realizes it’s basically a lost child with real emotions. Once a government agent seeks to obliterate it, Hogarth must hide it from being discovered.
I gotta say that I admire the simple yet powerful storytelling; granted, many of these characters don’t have much depth of character, but they still operate and live like normal people. They react to this giant robot who came from outer space and have different feelings towards it. Some are frightened at first until they warmed up to its harmless appearance whereas others are paranoid of it and seek to destroy what they don’t understand.
I was really impressed with Vin Diesel’s voiceover as the Iron Giant. He doesn’t have much dialogue, yet every word he says is delivered with emotion. The Giant is learning about Earth, the environment he encounters, earthly objects, human nature, and…his first friend.
He might be massive in size, yet he is gentle and protective despite what he was programmed for. I wish the movie delved more into his origins and see who or what his alien creator was and how he crashed into our planet.
And I also love the fact he’s very impressionable; just like a little kid, he picks up what he learns and copies other people’s words and movements. It’s so cute to see him act like this. But when someone he adores gets hurt badly, his anger knows no bounds.
Hogarth is a pretty good character, and his bond with the Giant is so well-written and believable. While it was very sad they made them part ways due to the Giant sacrificing himself to save the town from the nuke, at least he was glad…knowing that his best friend is still operational somewhere else in the world.
As for Kent Mansley, he was…a 50/50 character at best. I enjoyed his presence much more as a comic relief type of a guy rather than as the main villain of the movie. He tries too hard to be threatening, but at least he is funny to watch and is more memorable as a guy who tries to be a competent government official but fails. Good character but a forgettable villain.
Dean is another good character in this movie…sort of. While I like his casual style and friendship with Hogarth, I felt that it was weird for a little boy who doesn’t know anything about this complete stranger just act so comfortable around him alone in a scrapyard. Like dude, didn’t your mom ever tell you not to talk to strangers? lol
Speaking of whom, his mom was pretty nice. As any mother would, she was protective and understanding of her son although I wish she had more of a role in the story so that I can see her go more “momma bear” style later. That’s just me.
The animation still holds up to this day even though this was from the late 90s. I’m not too favorable with how some of the human characters look, but everybody else looks pretty much spot-on.
The voice acting is so good in this movie; every cast member went all out in their voiceover roles and gave these characters life with interesting personalities.
From what I got out of this movie, it’s the lesson about true friendship that can spring from anything and anywhere regardless of who we are or where we’ve come from. Plus, the creature who may appear to be dangerous may actually act more human than most realize. We should never judge a book by its cover.
Overall, this is a flawed but compelling movie that has the right amount of humor and emotion one would ever ask for. I give this a 9/10! If you’ve never seen this movie before, please give this a shot. I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.
RIP M. Emmet Walsh. I’ll never forget some of your movie roles and your role as Cosmic Owl from “Adventure Time”.
Congratulations on the number.
Your right about how this movie goes, amigo.
This movie was a good part of my childhood, and I have a lot of great memories from seeing this movie!
The Iron Giant is a true underrated classic and I'm glad so many others appreciate it like I do!
Congratulations on unlocking this achievement.
I did have one comment on your analysis. The Iron Giant is suppose to take place in 1957. The term "stranger danger" was first coined in 1963. Additionally, Rockwell was a small town (i.e. everyone knew everyone). Literature and news stories from that time period tend to indicate a much looser level of paranoia. I think your criticism of Hogarth and Dean interactions are colored by the nearly 70 year difference in time.
Other then that, great analysis.
Makes me want a sequel that adapts the Iron Woman novel.