Film Scouts Reviews: Iron Giant, The

"The Iron Giant" appears out of nownere in a tiny town in Maine in 1958. Between the the "Red Scare" and threat of "The Bomb", outsiders, much less giant men from outer space, are hardly welcome visitors.

When the inquisitive Hogarth Hughes stumbles upon the giant while trekking through the woods late one night, the giant finds a friend. Hogarth, with the help of a friendly beatnik artist/scrap dealer, attempt to hide the giant from the town's people, a pesky government agent from an unnamed agency and the US Military as a whole.

Based on the story "Iron Man" by British poet laureate Ted Hughes, "The Iron Giant" is a rare gem in the world of recent animated films. It relies simply and successfully on the power of the story it is telling to keep people interested.

"The Iron Giant" is an animated film that will appeal to childrean and adults equally. It is chock full of late 50's sci-fi and pop culture and manages to capture the instilled paranoia of the time. In short, "The Iron Giant" belongs with films such films the likes of "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" as absolute classics of their genre.

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"The Iron Giant"

by Thom Bennett