The Iron Giant (1999)

Starring: Eli Marienthal, Harry Connick Jr, Jennifer Aniston, Vin Diesel, Christopher McDonald, John Mahoney

Plot: A young boy befriends a giant robot made of, well, iron.

Runtime: 86 minutes

Director: Brad Bird

For the next little bit, I’m going to doing some reviews based on nostalgia. Were the movies I watched as a kid really as great as I remember them? Or did I just love them because I was a kid? I think I’ll forego watching a lot of the classic Disney movies as I know they hold up pretty decently and, in some cases, amazingly.

Review: I remember watching this movie a very long time ago and, while I was fifteen when it came out, I was still pretty new to a lot of movies and this wasn’t a classic Disney film, so I wasn’t really quite sure about it. I was in that weird phase where I hadn’t quite gotten into the Miyazaki anime world and the only movies I’d seen that were animated and not Disney were Don Bluth films, to which some are my favourite cartoons of all time.

This is a fantastical tale about Hogarth(Marienthal), a young boy in the 1950’s who befriends a huge ass iron giant (Vin Diesel) and tries to convince people, including his mother (Aniston) and anyone who will listen, that the robot exists and isn’t a danger at all.

The artwork holds up quite well, it’s very nice to see the classic artwork and it was fused with CGI on the giant to create an impression that it is from somewhere else. Super cool to see when one knows a little bit more about processes. Solid 7.5/10

The sound is done pretty well, it’s obviously aged a bit, but that doesn’t affect much as it’s a movie about the 1950’s. The music is apt and the sound works quite well for it. 7.5/10

The acting is a bit tough for me to quantify as it’s voice acting and not as simple to give reviews on acting. Funny to me that the kid who plays Hogarth turns out to be Stiflers brother in the American Pie sequels. It’s also a bit weird that Harry Connick Jr is in this as well, I remember when he was supposed to be a massive star and just kinda… didn’t. I also give bonus points because the coach from Major League does one of the voices in the movie, pretty sweet. 6/10

The Story is pretty cool, I enjoy stuff like this and it was definitely fun to see someone other than Disney do things like this, even if it was another beast, like Warner Brothers. 7/10

The rewatchability is going to be, for me, where this movie lacks. I saw it in 1999 when it would have come out, maybe again in like 2010 and now. It’s a very fun movie and worth watching, would be fun to watch with a young child. But not one that massively grabs me as a movie to watch again and again. I’d give the rewatchabiliry a 3/10 most likely.

Definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it and, if you have kids, give it a go with them maybe.