Now let's see. I had to wake up at 9:30 A.M. one morning so I could make it to the theatre for a 10 A.M. free preview screening. They wouldn't treat a critic with credentials who worked for a big time paper like this. Well I'd also have some freaking money. Back to the topic at hand, I am waking up before 11 A.M. on my summer vacation so I can see a cartoon movie with a whole bunch of loud 5 year old and unders and not have to pay for the freaking movie. I was not in the best of the moods. I was thinking this movie better be good or it's going to get it. I'm tired of crappy cartoon movies made by Warner Brothers (i.e. The King and I, Quest for Camelot). I'm tired of average and bad movies in general. I've been seeing junk all year. Well The Iron Giant, even through all these negative thoughts, came out as a highly regarded in my cinematic mind.

    A young boy named Hogarth Hughley is on his summer vacation. One day an Iron Giant lands on earth and he finds it. He, of course, takes a liking to it. It is every little boys' dream to have a giant robot as a friend or a pet. I definitely dreamed about it when I was a young boy. Of course the obvious problems arise when you find something that is like 100 feet high. Where are you going to put it or in this case hide it? Where is a little boy going to get food for it especially since it only eats metal? These problems are solved when Hogarth meets Dean McCoppin (voiced by Harry Connick Jr.) who owns a big metal scrap dump. He befriends Hogarth who is outcasted by all the kids in the town.

    Now the big problem arises, the government is after it. In their mind it's a threat to national security. They send out hard ass Kit Mansley (voiced by Christopher Macdonald). He comes into town but can't find any proof. He has a feeling that Hogarth is involved so he rents the apartment Hogarth and his mom have available. He tries to get Hogarth to give up the goods. In one particular part Mansley uses every name that adults use to try to woo children into believing it's ok to tell them everything. He calls him chief, big man, boss and all the rest. It was very amusing from my perspective. I remember being called all those names.

 The premise of Iron Giant isn't to ummm... original per se but it was crafted with so much care that it came out perfectly. A boy has no friends finds a foreign person who he likes and befriends him and protects them. I can think of at E.T. that had that same basic premise off the top of my head. The characters don't even seem like they are animated. If you were blind, you wouldn't know this is a cartoon. That's a dumb statement forget I said that. The movie has real and important moral. The story of not wanting to be a weapon, not wanting to be a weapon of destruction, and that that everyone has a choice and good people make the right choice. Iron Giant is an important movie and everyone should see it.