Brad Bird | 83 mins | DVD | 2.35:1 | USA / English | U / PG
Adapted (loosely) from Ted Hughes’ children’s novel The Iron Man, the feature debut of director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, now live-action stuff) relocates the book’s story to ’50s America and mixes in some Cold War elements. The film was somewhat verboten in our household when it came out, because the book was beloved and the film looked so different, but its reputation has only grown in the ensuing decade-and-a-half — and Hughes approved of it anyway.
This version sees the titular robot (voiced by Vin Diesel) crash to Earth near Maine in late 1957, the home of nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) and his mom Annie (Jennifer Aniston). After the giant eats the Hughes’ TV aerial, Hogarth tracks it to take a photo, and ends up saving it from electrocution when it tries to eat a power station. As the giant sneaks around the countryside eating cars and causing train crashes, it attracts the attention of government agent Fox Mulder from the FBI’s X Files Kent Mansley from the Bureau of Unexplained Phenomena (Christopher McDonald), who’s intent on uncovering and destroying the giant. Hogarth tries to hide the friendly creature with the help of artist Dean (Harry Connick Jr.), but could it be Mansley isn’t so wrong about the threat it poses?
The story, as reconstructed by Bird and screenwriter Tim McCanlies, integrates influences from ’50s B-movies (very apt for a giant robot ‘monster’) and Cold War/Space Race paranoia for a potent storyline that has a different emphasis from the novel’s “world peace” finale, but nonetheless is promoting understanding of alien/foreign powers and, y’know, deep stuff like that. Alternatively — or, rather, concurrently — it’s an E.T.-esque tale of a boy and his quirky alien friend. Bird was keen to emphasise character over action and mindless spectacle, and that’s really where the film’s strengths lie.
Well, that and the technical aspects. The animation is stunningly well done, exhibiting exceptional fluidity and detail in its character animation, in particular. That’s in spite of the film having a reduced budget and time schedule thanks to the box office failure of previous animations by the studio — in Bird’s words, they had “one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule”, but that meant greater production freedom (so long as they managed that budget). I guess that’s why the film’s ended up only growing in stature since its first release — because it’s able to be committed to its creators’ vision, rather than being battered into homogeneity by a studio desperate for a return on considerable investment.
Beautifully animated and affectingly told, with a style that nicely homages classic sci-fi movies, The Iron Giant is a film that deserves the 
reputation it has gradually amassed — and which only continues to grow, I think. Last year saw the release of an extended Signature Edition, with a couple of short scenes added, which comes to US Blu-ray (alongside the original version) later this year. Just from reading about those new scenes, I’m not convinced they’ll improve the experience, but it’ll certainly be worth finding out.
The Iron Giant was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 2016 project, which you can read more about here.
This review is also part of 1999 Week.
I have many goals within my film viewing, quite apart from trying to watch 100 films every year. Some I’ve completed (the Rathbone Holmes series), others are almost done (every Spielberg film), others not so much (every Hitchcock film), and others I’ve barely begun (the Zatoichi series). One of these goals is to watch every Disney Animated Classic, their canon of feature animations that currently sits at 55 titles (with another scheduled for later this year, in the US at least). I did a pretty good job on the real classics while growing up, and have since filled the gaps of the modern classics, so I’m left ploughing through their lesser periods: the content they pumped out in the war-affected ’40s, and the post-Renaissance pre-Lasseter clusterfrack that was their ’00s produce. My best hope is to uncover a hidden gem while I mop up this dross.
but only because it has a moderately amusing reveal in the middle of it. The animation is unremarkable, besides some terrible CG intrusions. It seems to be under the impression that “hog” is a word for “cow”, based on the number of puns. A couple of gags do land — I even laughed out loud once, though I’ve forgotten why — but the majority is resolutely uninspired.
Oh (Jim Parsons) is a Boov, a race of friendly aliens looking for a new home planet to escape their enemies. When they arrive on Earth, Oh tries to invite everyone to a party, but accidentally alerts their enemies to their new home. Outcast, he bumps into Tip (Rihanna), a girl accidentally left behind when the rest of mankind was relocated by the Boov. Desperate for friendship, Oh agrees to help her find her mother.
but the entire universe, including our enemies”? Why is there no option to cancel such a transmission that is going to take 40 hours to reach said enemies? I mean, that last one’s a stupid question, because why is there even a way to message the enemies?
Well now, hasn’t this been a long time coming? Just over two years since its western disc release was first announced, just over three years since it debuted in Japanese cinemas, and just over four-and-a-half years since 
Change, and the embracing or rejection of it, is surely one of the major themes of Evangelion. This is more explicitly debated as 3.33 moves into its middle section, where we get an extended dose of Shinji’s traditional insecurities. Hey, it wouldn’t be Evangelion without Shinji having a self-pitying whinge, right? Fortunately there’s more going on than that, but this is a section light on action and heavy on the series’ more thoughtful elements. There are answers to some of the mysteries, but it again wouldn’t be Evangelion if it all made easy sense. At the same time, Shinji bonds with new Eva pilot Kaworu. A controversial character, apparently, and not just because of the homosexual overtones (which some reviewers claim to miss, presumably because they’re blind), but the scenes where they harmonise by playing piano together are quite fantastically animated.
3.33 divides quite neatly into three half-hour sections. I guess that should be expected, as the whole tetralogy has been based in traditional Japanese ideas of narrative/musical structure, hence the films’ Japanese titles incorporating the names for the three movements: jo, ha, and kyū (序破急), which roughly equate to “beginning”, “middle”, and “end”. As discussed, the first is fantastic, some of the best material in the entire series, in my estimation. Also as discussed, the second is a lot slower, but has its plus points too. The third… ah, the third. Here we get some more action, which will please anyone who thrills to Eva combat, but it is also utterly mind-boggling. I’ve been reading up on a few fan sites since watching, and I’m still not absolutely sure what was going on or what it signified. You won’t find any enlightenment in the disc’s special features, which present a long list of extras at first glance, but turn out to be 19 repetitive trailers, TV spots, and promo reels. Yes, nineteen.
So when will that conclusion come? Well, a few years ago Anno ‘joked’ that the finale might be released “four to six years” after 3.33. As we’re already almost at four years with no sign of a release date, I guess it wasn’t so much of a ‘joke’ after all. An English-friendly DVD/Blu-ray will inevitably take an additional couple of years, too. So an indefinite, but undoubtedly lengthy, wait begins…
Score: 
Mumble and his penguin pals return for another adventure, in a series the Australian film industry are reportedly inordinately proud of.
For most of the ’90s and ’00s, Disney churned out direct-to-video sequels to many of their most beloved animated classics. They have a reputation for being unremittingly awful, hence why Pixar’s John Lasseter put a stop to their production after he became Disney’s Chief Creative Officer in 2006. Despite that reputation, however, there are those who say one or two are actually quite good. One of those (and the only one I’ve previously seen) is 
are to be found with the forty thieves… I expect you can guess where that’s going. Fortunately the film gets there pretty quickly, then transitions into a story about the possible redemption (or not) of Cassim alongside the quest for the Hand of Midas, capable of turning whatever it touches into gold (natch).
Shaun the Sheep started life in the 1995 Wallace & Gromit short 
(that US PG is thanks to a couple of oh-so-rude fart jokes), but there’s a sophistication to the way that simplicity is handled that adults can enjoy. There are also references and in-jokes for the grown-ups; not hidden dirty jokes that’ll put you in the awkward position of having to explain to the kids why you were laughing, but neat puns (note the towns that the Big City is twinned with) and references to other films (like 
In this ‘sequel’ to Inside Out, Riley is going to hang out with a friend… who turns out to be a boy, which sends her mum and dad — and their anthropomorphised emotions — into paroxysms of worry. Is this the 12-year-old’s first date?
The short that accompanied Inside Out in cinemas is essentially a music video for a folksy ballad about a pair of volcanoes who are in ‘lava’ (read: love) with each other.
100Films.co.uk 