The Iron Giant Review

Messages: Gracefully utilizes both plot and characters to share messages about behavior, life values, and important issues. “You are what you choose to be,” and “Don’t care what anyone else thinks” are verbalized and illustrated several times. “Guns kill; things die; it’s a part of life,” is portrayed by the errant shooting of a deer, along with “Souls don’t die; all good things go on forever and ever.” Set in the late 1950s, the government’s reaction to the Iron Giant reveals the paranoia and fear that were pervasive during the Cold War. At the film’s end, the robot is given an urgent moral dilemma: should he use his abilities as a weapon to destroy everyone and everything in his path, or should he allow himself to be destroyed in order to save his own goodness… his “soul.”

Role models: Hogarth Hughes, the young hero, is seen as resourceful, courageous, curious, compassionate, and intelligent. Though he sometimes ventures outside of his mom’s comfort zone, and even his own comfort zone, he is always well-intentioned and honorable. Hogarth’s struggling single mother is portrayed as concerned, loving, and hard-working. The movie’s villain, a high-ranking U.S. official, is depicted as ruthless, ego-driven, paranoid, and a threat to the heroes.

Violence and scariness: Cartoon action sequences play throughout: Boat in storm, man overboard, but escapes; a huge robot (the Iron Giant, who turns out to be one of the film’s heroes) eats metal, destroys a power station, tromps across the landscape, chasing the young boy hero and frightening people. Sparks fly, buildings fall. A deer is shot and killed. The robot is hit by a train, threatened, and shot at countless times by a squadron of armed military. To defend himself the robot creates havoc with some spectacular shooting and firing power of his own. Some spooky music accompanies old black-and-white TV footage.

Sexy stuff: Not an issue

Language: “Hell,” is said three times, an “omigod,” and one “butt.”

Consumerism: Mentions of Twinkies, Mad magazine, Action Comics, and Superman.

Drinking, drugs and smoking: Set in the late 1950s, a secretary smokes a cigarette at her desk; a government official smokes a pipe throughout. A laxative is used to obstruct the progress of the movie’s villain, with predictably humorous results as he continually needs to find a bathroom (as subtly depicted, this plot line will probably go over the heads of younger children).