Hogarth Hughes makes a big new friend in 1950s Cold War throwback THE IRON GIANT
THE IRON GIANT (Brad Bird, 1999)
Valentino Pier, Red Hook
Van Dyke St. & the Brooklyn Waterfront
Tuesday, August 23, free, 8:30
www.redhookfilms.org
Writer-director Brad Bird won Oscars for his animated features The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatatouille (2007), but the Simpsons veteran first made his mark with the charming 1999 sci-fi cartoon The Iron Giant. Based on the 1968 book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, the animated film is set during the Cold War, with the general populace and the military fearful of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. So when rumors that a fifty-foot-tall iron giant (voiced by Vin Diesel) has fallen from the sky, the government wants to destroy it, but it is being hidden by young Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal), who has saved its life. Hogarth keeps his new best friend a secret from his mother (Jennifer Aniston) and federal agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald) with the help of the town beatnik, Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.), who takes a liking to Hogarth’s mom. The screenplay, written by Tim McCanlies (Secondhand Lions), plays with various genre clichés just enough to avoid being clichéd itself, instead making The Iron Giant a delightful, nearly flawless twist on the E.T. mythos, mixed in with a little Androcles & the Lion, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and even Frankenstein and King Kong. The film, which also features the voices of Cloris Leachman (Mrs. Tensedge), John Mahoney (General Rogard), and M. Emmet Walsh (Earl Stutz), is a treat for children and adults. Bird, meanwhile, has graduated to live action; his next movie will be Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, and Simon Pegg. The Iron Giant is screening for free on August 23 at dusk as part of the Red Hook Summer Movies series in Valentino Pier, which continues August 30 with Pump Up the Volume (Allan Moyle, 1990), September 6 with Highlander (Russell Mulcahy, 1986), and September 13 with the viewers choice selection, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985).