The Iron giant

A loving homage to fifties science fiction movies, Brad Bird’s animated “The Iron giant” has a strong sense of that era’s unerring innocence mixed with the looming paranoia of the unfamiliar ‘other’. Based on the 1968 children’s story “Iron man” by British poet laureate Ted Hughes, the film’s archetypal story of fear and prejudice depicts the unusual friendship between a nine year old boy called Hogarth Hughes (voiced by Eli Marienthal) and a giant robot that mysteriously lands in small town Maine circa 1958. The town’s suspicious adults greet the enigmatic visitor with open hostility, pushing the young boy into a protective role with the misunderstood giant. When nosy government agents descend upon the town in search of the robot, Hogarth begins to find hiding the car-eating giant a challenging task. Brad Bird laces this wonderful children’s fantasy with a strong political parable about the cold war fear that permeated every aspect of American society and includes a hilarious cartoon version of the now infamous educational film “Duck and cover”. Cast includes: Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick JR, Vin Diesel, Cloris Leachman, John Mahoney, M. Emmet Walsh, Christopher McDonald.