Animated films that don't have the Disney logo attached rarely dominate the box office. Case in point: Warners superb Iron Giant. Though it's failure at the box office could be attributed to their horrible marketing of the film (read: none at all), I'm sure if Disney had got a hold of it, this would have fared much better than it did.
Hogarth Hughes is a lonely 50's child who's mother is always working late. While home alone one night, watching "The Brain from Planet Auros" (in animated form of course), his TV signal goes out. Turns out a giant, metal eating robot from, well, no one quite knows where from, is the culprit. Hogarth (still can't get over that name) befriends the giant and makes an attempt to hide him in a junkyard. The government is determined to to find this supposed "destructive monster" and bring it down.
This is a stunning movie, not only a throwback to a great movie era, but surperbly directed by Brian Bird of Simpsons fame. There are so many in-jokes to the era (the duck and cover video is priceless) with a great story and performances, it's a crying shame this one never caught on. The animation, a mix of CG and hand drawn style, is just awesome. There are some unexplained elements of the film such as what happned to Hogarths father and the who/what/where's of the title creature (who happens to be voiced by Vin Diesel in his only decent performance), but these are minor flaws in an nearly perfect film. (**** out *****)
The Iron Giant is a double sided disc with one side in widescreen and the other pan & scam. The widescreen version, presented in 2.35:1, is the only way to go here. The expansiveness and the framing just isn't done justice with the cropping on the pan & scam version. The video quality is just stunning. The colors are almost always solid and are perfect for the format. Compression problems are noticeable if you look, but are very subdued compared to other animated features. Nightime sequences are a bit more obvious as far as compression is concerned, but this is still close to refrence quality video. (****)
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