The Iron Giant: A Review

Brad Bird’s debut feature was a box office failure and a critical success, and twenty-six years later, it remains one of the best animated films ever made.

Set during the Cold War paranoia of 1957, the film follows Hogarth Hughes, a nine-year-old in a small Maine town who discovers a fifty-foot robot that fell from space. The Giant eats metal, learns words, and has a weapons system inside him that he did not choose. The film’s central question, whether identity is determined by design or by choice, is delivered through action rather than philosophy – all told through a giant metal robot’s triumph and pain.

Bird stages the film with a live-action director’s eye for composition and timing, exemplified by the Giant’s first appearance, emerging from fog on a stormy night. This appearance is shot like a horror film. The subsequent friendship between Hogarth and the Giant unfolds with the patience of a 1950s adventure story, and the pacing trusts that the audience does not need an action sequence every ten minutes to stay engaged, in large part due to Vin Diesel’s performance as the Giant. With a minimalistic take that makes every word feel earned, the Giant discovers a deer’s death and Hogarth must explain mortality with a restraint that amplifies rather than diminishes the emotion.

The villain, government agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald), is the weakest element. His paranoia is played too broadly in the first half, which undermines the genuine threat he represents in the second. The film occasionally tells us he is dangerous rather than showing it. But the climax, where the Giant chooses who he wants to be, is perfect. One word: “Superman.” It should not work, yet it does.

Otherwise, this is an animation classic. A film that is timeless despite its age and a film that many will come to love as generations come and go. You can watch this film on HBO Max.

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