Please note that this review contains spoilers.

The Iron Giant is a film that is almost totally unique in the history of contemporary animation. It is a provoking and poignant story that is exciting without being brainless and thoughtful without being condescending.

I won't go into the particulars of the story itself since that is probably summarised by Amazon and most other reviewers. Instead I will say that this film has a particular gift which is to teach children by treating them as adults and to entertain adults in a child-like way. It is moving and funny and entertaining; never straying too far from the habits of its characters in order to thrust a moral lesson home, nor suspending story for the sake of a joke and, perhaps most importantly, not afraid to expose its audience to very frightening issues.

This is no fairy tale, so far removed from Ted Hughes' fable that I very much treat the two as seperate entities, the world that the Giant finds himself in visceral and real. There could be no more perfect setting than at the height of Cold-War terror, with the attitudes of the American government, perhaps all Western governments, portrayed so faultlessly by the perfectly hateable Kent Mansley. The attitude of "we didn't build it and that's every reason to suspect the worst and blow it to kingdom come" and the locomotive-like momentum of paranoid ignorance being far more effective adversaries to the Giant than any Bat-Angel-Dragon.

The Iron Giant is groundbreaking and not afraid to buck trends, there is no musical interlude of any kind and Kent's treatment of Hogarth when things start to heat up is genuinely scary. Not to mention the flawless, sublime ending; in how many children's films can you say that the climax involves the hero sacrificing himself to save everyone, including the villain?

"I love you" says Hogarth as the Giant prepares to lay down his life. And at that point, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't.

I'd never heard of this film, but bought it from the sale as it had a few good reviews, and on Sunday morning I sat down with my two sons (5 and 2) to watch it for the first time, and hardly a word was spoken by any of us before the end, we were all spellbound.

This is somehow old fashioned in terms of the pace of the story and the style of animation, and bang up to date at the same time, meaning it really does appeal to all, and in my opinion there really are few kids films being made today that can match it.

My advice is buy it, you won't be disappointed - I think we'll all be watching it again next weekend.

I'll keep this as short as possible.
I remember around 7 years ago, I watched this for the first time. I was quite young and I was absolutely mesmerized by it. Today, I had a craving to watch it again for the first time in 7 years. I dug out the old dusty VHS from the attic and played it. After watching it once again, I was completely blown away. The animation has not a aged a bit and the story is as touching as ever.

Don't pass the chance up to watch this classic. A legendary film that I shall remember for the rest of my life.

This is a wonderful movie. It has a real meaty story that unwinds at a far gentler pace than many other animated movies but the overall result (especially after repeated viewings) is far more satisfying. If you love animation, don't miss this.

In this age of hi-tech super CG wizardy, we run a high risk of missing the point of the whole project. The Iron Giant does not fall prey to this. Inspired by the Ted Hughes story (read to me when I was a child, and still prominent in my memory!), there are some major deviations(no dragon, instead symbolically represented by a Nuclear missile)...but this is an animation...not a book, and the fullness of the screenplay and character development justifies the changes made. This is a beautiful story, well directed, voice-cast and animated. It looks fantastic, maintaining the cell-painted 2d look with the 3d CG elements, and chooses to play to the story rather than 'sell out' to the cliche gags or special effects (DreamWorks, take note...although I do love your stuff too!!!!!).