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THE IRON GIANT
Directed by Brad Bird
Screenplay by Tim McCanlies and Brad Bird
Based on the book "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes
Starring Eli Marienthal, Harry Connick Jr., Jennifer Aniston,
Vin Diesel, Christopher McDonald and John Mahoney
My advice: Add this on to the video vault. It's priceless.
Rating:  out of
You know you've reached a new PMS low when you are sobbing on your couch over a bucket of bolts.
I loved this movie.
Colorfully set back in 1957, The Iron Giant is a story about nine year old Hogarth Hughes (wonderfully voiced by
Eli Marienthal) and his fantastic discovery of a "hundred foot tall" robot in the backwoods near Rockwell,
Maine. Unfortunately for Hogarth, he isn't the only person to have seen the Giant. Earl Stutz (M. Emmet Walsh),
an old fisherman who ran his boat into the robot has immediately called in the Army to investigate this frightening
thing from "Outer-space."
A fatherless child -- his single mother Annie (Jennifer Aniston) works as a waitress in town -- Hogarth takes in
the Giant and does what he can to teach him right from wrong. He keeps the Giant in hiding as investigator Kent
Mansley (Christopher McDonald) comes to uncover the mystery at the behest of the National Government. Not an easy
task since Mansley is now renting a room across the hall from Hogarth's very own bedroom.
As the story grows, so does the Giant's hunger and into the picture comes Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.), a
junk dealer who creates art out of the scrap metal he picks up for a penny a pound. Dean helps hide the Giant from
the U.S. Army, which has come to town at Kent Mansley's bidding to destroy the lumbering robot.
This movie was remarkable. Cleverly constructed and beautifully animated, there were times I forgot I was even
watching a "cartoon" and felt so deeply for the characters they sprang to life.
See it and bring a box of Kleenex. You'll need it. I know I did.
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