Ah, my childhood, methinks I talk about it too much. But how can I help it when all of my interests and tastes originate from back in the day? Today I'm reviewing "The Iron Giant".
It's funny when an eighteen-year-old like me watches a movie that he first saw when he was only around seven. I notice a lot of things that I simply didn't get when I was a kid. In this case, it's the importance of the Cold War setting, the musings of Kent Mansley, and just how insecure the Giant makes everyone feel. I mean, they really could've been right about him being a Soviet weapon. When I was a kid, they were just "the bad guys", but now that I've grown up, there really seems to be little difference between the good guys and the bad.
For those of you who ignored this movie when it first came out (it was overshadowed by the big Disney films at the time, after all), I'll give you the premise. A giant robotic man crashes on Earth during the height of the Cold War era in the 1950s. He is soon discovered by a young boy named Hogarth, who wants to keep him secret from the government.
Now, I know that that premise sounds incredibly familiar (a certain brown alien with a long neck comes to mind), but aside from that the film is truly a unique experience. It touched on subjects that a lot of other kid's movies didn't have the guts to touch on. And at times, it was very dark for an children's film. Let's just say that if you threatened that beast of a robot, you would be in a world of hurt.
One of it's big important lessons is that you are who you choose to be, that the choices that you make now will shape who you become in the future. I think it's a lesson that this film pulls off effortlessly.
So if you never checked out this film back in the day, or you want to show it to your kids, then hop on Netflix and give it a gander. You won't be disappointed.
Rating: *****
No comments:
Post a Comment