The Iron Giant

Released 1999
Animated
Voices Eli Marienthal, Vin Diesel, Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., Christopher McDonald, James Gammon, M. Emmet Walsh
Directed by Brad Bird

Imagine "E.T." as a towering metal man, and you have some of the appeal of "The Iron Giant," an enchanting animated feature about a boy who makes friends with a robot from outer space. The giant crash-lands on a 1957 night when America is peering up at the speck of Sputnik in the sky, and munches his way through a Maine village, eating TV antennas and cars, until he finds a power plant. That's where young Hogarth Hughes finds him.

Like the new Japanese animated films, "The Iron Giant" is happy to be a "real movie" in everything but live action. There are no cute little animals and not a single musical number: It's a story, plain and simple. It works as a lot of animation does, to make you forget from time to time that these are moving drawings, because the story and characters are so compelling.

Summary by Roger Ebert