The Iron Giant More Than Earns It Status As A Masterpiece Through Incredible Storytelling

I am far from the first person whose ever wrote about how awesome The Iron Giant is as a piece of cinema. Coming at the tail end of the 1990's, a decade that had theatrical American animation reinvent itself as the a huge moneymaker after decades of dormancy after the death of Walt Disney, The Iron Giant was unlike anything else seen in that decades crop of animated fare. Most of the studios chasing the tail of Disney in this era, including the studio behind The Iron Giant (Warner Bros.) were looking to do the kind of musical fairy tales that Disney had turned into box office powerhouses, leading to a lot (and boy do I mean a lot) of animated fare that just boiled down to "Disney knock-off".

And then here comes The Iron Giant, sauntering in with no musical numbers, a slightly edgier sense of dialogue (not in the sense that they were using 90's slang, goodness no, but they did take God's name in vain and use hell as a swear word multiple times, something that likely felt it came from a whole other planet after a decade of predominately G-rated fare) and a period era backdrop in 1950's Rockwell, Maine, a stark contrast to the more "long ago" time period settings of 90's Disney fare and the majority of those aforementioned Disney knock-offs. Plus, it was a science-fiction tale, a genre theatrical American hand-drawn animation had mostly avoided up til then, though the artform would obsess over it in the first few years of the 21st century to mostly dismal results (save for the occasional Titan A.E. and especially Treasure Planet). Point being, this was, on the surface, quite unlike anything else anyone else was bringing to multiplexes in terms of animated family fare at the time.

Another notable attribute The Iron Giant carried? It was an amazing movie and may still remain Brad Bird's best overall movie (an incredible achievement given how strong his track record has been as a filmmaker in the nearly two decades since this movie's release). Revisiting the movie for the first time in a good long while served as a potent reminder to yours truly just how incredibly deft this movie is on a storytelling level, with each major plot development getting proper build-up, both subtle and overt depending on the situation, allowing the film to have this graceful feel to it in terms of structure.

The tale that this movie is able to tell in such a concise and well-done manner is that of Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal), a young boy living with his single mother, Annie Hughes (Jennifer Aniston), who inadvertently stumbles upon an outer space visitor who is latter dubbed The Iron Giant (Vin Diesel). A seemingly foreboding creature whose height dwarfs anything found on our planet, he turns out to be a friendly individual with a hunger for metal and a large level of ignorance when it comes to understanding how things typically work on Earth. Hogarth begins to teach this Iron Giant about the planet he's found himself on and the two manage to develop a friendship in the process that also soon involves a local beatnik artist Dean (Harry Connick Jr.).

But a nefarious and paranoid government agent, Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald), is after the Iron Giant, believing him to be a menace that needs to be destroyed to protect America.  The various protagonists and antagonists in The Iron Giant are clearly defined individuals but this doesn't mean that they come off as one-note archetypes or anything of that sort. On the contrary, there are all kinds of subtleties that surround these characters that make them utterly fascinating people to watch. Some of those subtleties stem from the animation, especially in regards to the way the Iron Giant is realized. There are all kinds of facial expressions and pieces of body language that emphasize the characters vulnerable and childlike nature in a subdued way that allows you to empathize the extraterrestrial creation solely by the way he bobs his head or expresses sorrow on his face.

The choice to set this story in the 1950's manages to work like gangbusters to adding layers to the human characters, especially Kent Mansley, whose informed by the paranoia of foreign forces that ran rampant in this age (this was, after all, the era where The Second Red Scare emerged). Allowing this pure friendship between Hogarth and The Iron Giant, two individuals from entirely different planets and species, to contrast alongside the fears of the different and unknown many carried in this era proves to be an absolutely brilliant stroke of storytelling genius. There's a sense of reality in this movie's depiction of the 1950's that really allows it to come alive and makes the pure friendship between the two main characters feel all the more special and unique.

All of those incredibly insightful story-related and filmmaking choices create a movie that's able to pack an emotional wallop in its climax that pays off on the various character dynamics it's previously set up. There's a bunch of tiny moments in this portion of the story that are devastating on an emotional level, like The Iron Giant touching Hogarth's unconscious body in the snow or Hogarth standing before The Iron Giant in its weaponized form imploring him to remember that he is who he chooses to. These are all beautiful moments that help prepare the viewer for that ending, the one we all still get lumps in our throat over nearly two decades after The Iron Giant's initial theatrical release.

Self-sacrifice is not an inherently novel concept in movies but then, few things, if any at all, in storytelling are. It all comes down to the way you tell it and the manner in which The Iron Giant presents and builds up to its main characters moment of self-sacrifice is masterfully executed. A slower build-up is key to this as it lets the realization that this kindly alien organism will be ending his life to save countless lives sink in for both the viewer and Hogarth himself. And that final bit where the Iron Giant murmurs "Superman" just before the missile hits him? Oh God, it's just so...beautiful. And that's far from the only moment in The Iron Giant that is this well-crafted and impactful.