The Iron Giant (1999)

RARELY DOES A FILM COME ALONG like The Iron Giant that ignites a passion in people.

Part of that passion comes from the fact that it’s a terrific film on all levels – a fantastic story featuring rollicking action, touching relationships, and the last gasp of top-notch 2D animation (only the Iron Giant himself is computer-animated).

Another part of that passion is even more fascinating: Watch the reaction of someone who’s seen The Iron Giant when another person tells them, “I’ve never seen it.” The first person will start to stammer, eyes widened, falling over themselves to tell the other person how great it is, and that they must see it immediately. That reaction is justified by the person, and earned by the film.

Set in Maine at the height of paranoia surrounding the Cold War, The Iron Giant follows nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal), an avid reader of comic books and watcher of the many B-movie sci-fi flicks of the era. When a giant metal alien (voiced by Vin Diesel) lands in Hogarth’s town, he hides him as best he can from prying eyes, primarily those of sneaky government agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald). While it feels like a childhood dream come true for Hogarth (“My very own robot!”) and the two start forming a bond, he seeks help from a local beatnik (the perfectly cast Harry Connick, Jr.) whose scrapyard provides a safe haven from the paranoid townfolk and the US Army…but for how long?

Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) does a masterful job of developing the relationship of Hogarth and the Giant (via Tim McCanlies’ terrific script) as Hogarth explains the ways of Earth as he sees them – from the awesomeness of Superman, to the joys of doing a cannonball into a lake, to the violence and sadness of guns.


Cynics may dismiss The Iron Giant as nothing more than E.T. with a robot, but they’d be wrong on several levels, the biggest one being that the source material for The Iron Giant – the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes – predates E.T. by nearly 15 years. However, there is one similarity: If you cried at the ending of E.T., you’ll probably blink back tears during The Iron Giant’s finale.

Warner Brothers’ mishandling of The Iron Giant’s theatrical release in 1999 is one of the more colossal blunders in the history of the business. The studio barely promoted or advertised the film, so it vanished from theatres in weeks. Luckily, it found a second life through home video and word of mouth, and is now considered a classic.

The Iron Giant is a tremendous, powerful story featuring lessons on life, death, friendship, love, and sacrifice. Simply writing this review makes me want to watch it again. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

Rating:

What did FilmBoy think?

He and I share the rating. He couldn’t put his finger on any favorite part, but he thoroughly enjoyed The Iron Giant – laughing at several scenes of Hogarth and the Giant bonding and playing, and getting caught up in the finale when the Giant must evade and ultimately face off against the US Army, who are determined to destroy him.

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Iron Giant is rated PG for “fantasy action and mild language.”
Violence/Scariness: Hogarth gets a nosebleed after running into a tree branch; a deer is shot and killed (we hear the gunshot then see the lifeless body); Mansley knocks Hogarth unconscious with a chloroform rag; two boys are in peril of falling off the top of a building; the army shoots a mass amounts of weapons at the Giant, including guns, tanks, and missiles; the Giant responds with his own catalog of weapons that destroys several tanks and army trucks (no soldiers are killed). The finale, involving Hogarth’s town, the Giant, and a nuclear missile, may be emotionally intense for very young children.
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco: There are passing mentions of alcohol that will probably go over young kids’ heads. Mansley smokes a pipe on occasion. Hogarth gets comically wired after drinking an espresso.
Language: There are mild profanities: “hell” (2x), “damn it” (2x), and in the finale, Mansley declares, “Screw our country!”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Yes. And if she’s not sure, make her. It’s a great film she shouldn’t miss.

 

That's either the Giant, or the squirrels are

throwing an all-nighter in their penthouse suite.

The Iron Giant
* Director: Brad Bird
* Screenwriter: Tim McCanlies
* Stars: Eli Marienthal, Vin Diesel, Harry Connick Jr., Jennifer Aniston, Christopher McDonald, John Mahoney
* MPAA Rating: PG


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Westworld (1973)

MENTION THE NAME “MICHAEL CRICHTON,” and most people think of the best-selling author of thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, and Rising Sun.

But in the early 1970s – after witnessing the animatronic people at Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride – Crichton wrote and directed his feature-film debut, Westworld.

In the near-future of Westworld, people can spend $1,000 a day to visit Delos, an adult-themed amusement park where guests live out their wildest fantasies. Comprised of three worlds (Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld), Delos is inhabited by robots who look, act, sound, and even bleed just like the human guests. Like Disney World, Delos is supported by an elaborate underground control center, where a staff of technicians controls the robots and the scenarios, and provides repair to robots damaged in the action taking place.

It’s Westworld where our leading men are headed: manly man John (James Brolin) and nebbish Peter (Richard Benjamin). Once they arrive, the two have lots of fun with saloon whiskey, loose women, bar fights, and jailbreaks. They even engage in shootouts, often with a steely-eyed troublemaker dressed in black (Yul Brynner). Everything’s good-time, rootin’-tootin’ fun – until the robots start malfunctioning and killing the guests.

Throughout Westworld, Crichton teases at the potential breakdown of the Delos parks: the supervisor (Alan Oppenheimer) voices his concern, a malfunctioning robo-rattlesnake bites John, and a Medieval World wench (Anne Randall) refuses a guest’s seduction. These minor glitches soon develop into to deadly attacks on the guests, with a fatal swordfight in Medieval World, a violent riot in Roman World, and Brynner’s gunslinger coldly gunning down a Westworld guest.

While Brynner is in Westworld for less than half its running time, his robotic gunslinger steals the film. In an homage to his character from The Magnificent Seven (he even wears the same outfit), Brynner portrays the perfect blend of ice-cold killer and calculating humanoid, with a piercing stare made extra chilling by Brynner sporting light-reflecting contact lenses.


After shooting one of our leading men dead, Westworld’s gunslinger methodically pursues the survivor through all three Delos parks – thumbs hooked in his gun belt, eyes fixed on his target, and using thermal vision (shown in POV) more than a decade before Predator.

Yes, Westworld has its plot holes, it dips into camp on occasion, and a lot of the dialogue (especially between Brolin and Benjamin) is disposable. But it’s still a very entertaining film that’s essentially the blueprint for Crichton’s more ambitious themepark-run-amok story: his 1990 novel Jurassic Park.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Westworld is rated PG, though if it was released today it may have been PG-13.
Violence/Scariness: Several people and robots are shot or stabbed, with blood pouring from the wounds; a robot is set on fire and fully engulfed in flames; John and Peter shoot a robotic rattlesnake; the Delos technicians suffocate after the park’s breakdown cuts off their air supply.
Sex/Nudity: John and Peter sleep with robot hookers at the saloon; one of the hookers is shown topless from the back.
Profanity/Language: Two occurrences of “God damn it.”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Westworld feels like a film you’d enjoy by yourself, with friends, or possibly with your tween or teen son. Unless your FilmMother is a sci-fi fan, or a Crichton fan who wants to see his filmmaking debut, I’m guessing she’ll pass.

Boy, have we got a vacation for YOU!

 Westworld
* Director: Michael Crichton
* Screenwriter: Michael Crichton
* Stars: Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Yul Brynner, Dick Van Patten, Alan Oppenheimer
* MPAA Rating: PG


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Gumby: The Movie (1995)

LAST MONTH would have been Gumby creator Art Clokey’s 90th birthday (he passed away in 2010). Google even honored Clokey’s birthday with an interactive Gumby-themed homepage logo:


Dash and Jack-Jack loved what Google did and, since they had never heard of Gumby, started asking questions about him and his friends. It was the perfect opportunity to show them Gumby: The Movie, which I had just put in my Netflix Instant queue a few weeks earlier.

Plot:
Gumby’s band, the Clayboys, decide to throw a benefit concert to raise money for local farm owners who are losing their farms, thanks for the evil Blockheads who run the local mortgage loan company. But when the Clayboys perform, Gumby’s dog Lowbelly cries tears that turn into valuable pearls – prompting the greedy Blockheads to kidnap Lowbelly and keep the pearls for themselves. In addition, they start kidnapping Gumby, Pokey, Pickle, Goo, and all the Clayboys and replacing them with robot look-alikes.

Critique:

Everything about Gumby: The Movie – the simple plot, the animation, the innocence of the characters – is a refreshing trip back in time for kids’ filmmaking. Granted, 1995 wasn’t that long ago, but Clokey (who directed the film) embodies everything that made his earlier Gumby series so endearing to generations of children. The ability of Gumby and his friends to enter storybooks and live the adventures within (farms, science laboratories, medieval times, etc.) adds to the magic.

That’s not to say Gumby, Pokey, and the gang only do it old school. Gumby’s band, the Clayboys, bring the rawk – jamming to the most hard rock/metal tunes ever shredded by animated lumps of clay.

Clokey’s “claymation” style of animation is pleasantly nostalgic, and the performances – aside from the Clayboys’ rockin’ numbers – are downright tame compared to today’s animated films.

The action in Gumby: The Movie does pick up in the second half, as Gumby and his evil robot twin chase and fight each other through different stories, even jumping into a few “videocassettes” (well, the film was made in the ‘90s). A couple of sequences even have subtle winks to Return of the Jedi and Terminator 2.

Nothing is heart-poundingly exciting or outrageously hilarious in Gumby: The Movie, but it gives kids and their parents a simple, enjoyable, fun family film that does Gumby – and Clokey’s legacy – proud.

aka Gumby 1.

Rating:

What did Dash and Jack-Jack think?

Since Dash and Jack-Jack have been raised on CGI and 2D animation, I had concerns they’d be jaded about the simplistic, occasionally crude claymation style of Gumby: The Movie. So I was happily surprised that they were glued to the screen for the entire film, even during the quieter moments – though at times, Jack-Jack was a bit confused (frankly, so was I) as to who were the “good” Gumby & Friends and who were the robots.

Is it suitable for your kids?

Gumby: The Movie is rated G and contains nothing overtly offensive. The robot dog falls in manure, and at one point Gumby and his evil robot twin fight each other with light sabers (leading to one of them losing a hand and the other getting sliced into pieces), but it’s not done violently or traumatically. Children of any age should be fine watching the film.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

If she watched Gumby as a child, Gumby: The Movie could definitely be a fun, nostalgic trip for her.

*Sigh* Where do you run the swipe key on these doors?

Gumby: The Movie
* Director: Art Clokey
* Screenwriters: Art Clokey, Gloria Clokey
* Stars: Charles Farrington, Art Clokey, Gloria Clokey, Manny La Carruba, Alice Young, Janet McDuff, Patti Morse, Bonnie Rudolph, David Ozzie Ahlers
* MPAA Rating: G


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WALL•E (2008)

Over the past six months, my 5-year-old son absorbed everything Pixar offered in teasing their upcoming film, WALL•E: billboards, TV spots, online clips, you name it. So when the film finally came out this past weekend, my lovely and loving wife volunteered to stay home for our 2-year-old’s afternoon nap so I could take his big brother to the local multiplex.

And I’m glad she did. WALL•E is a great film — a triumph on multiple levels. It tells the story of a garbage-covered Earth 700 years in the future, where all humans have evacuated the planet and are living on luxury spaceships while Earth is cleaned up by WALL•E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class) units.

There’s only one WALL•E still operating, and life’s a bit lonely for him. Only a cockroach sidekick and an old videotape of Hello, Dolly! keep him company. Until one day, a rocket ship lands and deploys a robot named EVE, whose mission I’ll keep secret. Eventually, WALL•E and EVE form a bond, one which takes them to one of the spaceships containing the pampered, doughy, somewhat baby-shaped humans awaiting the chance to go home (or are they?).

WALL•E is yet another amazing entry in Pixar’s film oeuvre. A good story, great balance of action and cuteness, and animation so amazing you forget it’s not models or studio sets. It also carries a none-too-subtle message about consumerism, corporate culture, and our bloated human race as a whole.

(An observation: This is Pixar’s 9th consecutive creative and box office success. In the near-40 years I’ve been on this planet, not even Disney has had that kind of a hot streak.)

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5).

Will your kids like it?

My 5-year-old son was entranced with the film from beginning to end. There are a few intense scenes of action (EVE packs a laser gun she uses about a half dozen times) and spaceships loudly igniting and landing, but nothing I’d label scary or frightening. That being said, I think it was wise to keep our 2-year-old home.

Will your FilmMother like it?

Absolutely. Even if she’s not a sci-fi fan, she’ll get past it quickly once EVE shows up and the courtship between her and WALL•E begins.

WALL•E
* Director: Andrew Stanton
* Screenwriter: Andrew Stanton
* Stars: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy
* MPAA Rating: G


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