That’s I’m talking about! This is what animation is supposed to be (among other things)!

Beautiful art, great voice acting - especially Dean, he has lots of great scenes - a wide breadth of emotions explored with both really funny and deeply emotional moments… Nuanced characters and a meaningful main message. Truly, one of the great works of the 20th century. To think this masterpiece came out only 1 year after Mulan really puts into perspective what a truly great film can be. The animation still struggles at times, there’s things that aren’t quite right - it does show it’s age - but holy crap guys, it’s incredible in every facet.

Everything it tries to do, it does, and it does it well. The Iron Giant is undoubtedly a classic, an undeniable icon of animation and it should continue to be a reference for all films to come, regardless of medium.

Brad Bird is a fucking genius, of course; He also directed The Incredibles so I’m not particularly surprised that this was as good as it is, but still.

The one moment in this 90 minute piece of art I didn’t love was that one scene where the inspector goes inspecting and this grating song plays… It goes like: “Searching, Searching, Searching…” or something akin to that. I mean, it’s kind of endearing, in a weird way, but it felt really out of place. The scene itself is fine, it’s really just the song that I can’t contend with.

I loved the colours too. It wasn’t an extremely colourful movie, as far as colourful movies go, but it seemed that they were trying to convey Hogarth’s childlike wonder by having him surrounded by more colour when he was feeling happy and such. His mother too, especially at the diner. There was a lot of grey and black all over the place, but he was always much more vibrant than his surroundings.

The character designs were also really awesome. I loves the old men background characters, I loved Kent too, a lot. He’s so expressive, all the time, so put-together at times, but so manic as well. Christopher McDonald does a fantastic job on him.

Speaking of Kent Mansley, he’s the antagonist, but he’s by no means a villain, which I also think really creates this amazing feeling throughout the whole movie - while you don’t root for him and definitely resent his attitude, it’s hard to judge him too harshly. He’s scared, paranoid, - a sign of the times and the propaganda that his very employer is poisoning the minds of all citizens with - and easily dismissed by his superiors. He’s just trying to do the right thing, he wants to protect everyone. He’s wrong, but not bad.

Another criticism I have is that the ending seemed a little… Too good. I have nothing against happy endings, but I do think that death is a powerful thing and it shouldn’t be easily dismissed. The emotional weight of losing those dear to you shouldn’t be hand-waved away. At the same time, Chekhov’s gun, right? The camera came back to bite Hogarth, and the rebuilding came back to lick his wounds, I suppose.

Overall, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen? Perchance.

The giant didn’t wear pants: 5/5