The Iron Giant was a beautiful, funny and touching movie, that is one of the best non-Disney animated movies I have seen along with The Prince of Egypt, The Secret of NIMH, Watership Down and Castle of Cagliostro. There wasn't a single thing I hated about the movie, for me it was outstanding on every level. The animation was absolutely gorgeous, with stunning colourful backgrounds and brilliant character animation especially on the Iron Giant himself. The music by Michael Kamen was consistently excellent, and never overpowered the story. In fact at times it even enhanced the drama. And the film has a beautiful message not to mention a sweet story. The characters were delightful, Hogarth isn't annoying at all and the Iron Giant isn't scary in the slightest. Strictly speaking he has to be one of the most gentle and poignant characters in an animated film. There are plenty of effective scenes like the explosive climax and the scene with the dead deer is a real tear jerker. I will admit I was worried initially when I saw the voice cast, but everybody involved did a superb job. Jennifer Aniston and Harry Connick Jnr were perfect, in their most understated performances. Both get stick about being untalented, but for me their vocal contributions in this film suggests otherwise, while Christopher MacDonald almost steals the film as the FBI agent. Eli Marienthal is very sweet and likable as Hogarth too, and watch out for John Mahoney and Cloris Leachman. All in all, an outstanding film, that if you mind me saying so is the best animated film of 1999 and one of the best films of that year too. I may be wrong but I do think it is highly underrated on IMDb. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A giant metal man falls from space and lands in the woods of Maine. Hogarth Hughes is a little boy living in a 1950s small town. He finds the giant who has lost its memory after its head gets dented. His single waitress mother refuses to believe his tall tale. Government agent Kent Mansley has arrived to investigate. Scrap metal artist Dean McCoppin is enlisted to help to feed the giant with scrap metal.

Brad Bird has created a great family movie. It is touching story with a great message. It deals with very tricky subject matters and does it with tremendous skills. And it's a giant robot with a little boy. That's the dream of every little boy.

Sometimes when watching an animated feature, I spend my time saying, "What great animation." When this happens, I wonder if I am doing what the producers wanted me to do. Like so many things, should I be so enamored with the technical part of the movie that I am distracted from the content. As I watched "The Iron Giant" I realized I had forgotten it was an animated feature. Don't get me wrong. I knew the enormous title character was animated, but the relationships among the characters and the intelligence of the script caused me to forget that these weren't actors. The movie is filled with tender moments, especially as they relate to our feelings of our own mortality. What I enjoyed is that the grownups aren't treated as garden variety bad guys. Even the military, which is nearly always portrayed as evil, finds itself in a contradictory position--having to go on faith. The animation is wonderful, but so are the "performances." No spoilers here, but I think the ending is a lovely tribute to the spirit of the life force in all of us--even those of us not made of metal. See this. It is one of the better movies of the year.