The film is also interesting in its eclectic animation style. As a cell animation film, it is clearly reminiscent of those classic animation films of Don Bluth and Hayao Miyazaki for its painstaking efforts on rich backgrounds and details, but Bird and his animators also used computer graphic animation for drawing the robot. Looking as alien as required but being seamlessly incorporated into cell animation, the robot in the film never feels like merely being tacked on the screen, and that is one of the main reasons why the climactic action sequence later in the story powerfully works amidst lots of actions.

Above all, we are amused and touched by how the friendship between Hogarth and his robot friend is developed. As they get connected more with each other step by step, the screenplay by Bird and his co-writer Tim McCanlies, which is based on Ted Hughes’ acclaimed children’s book The Iron Man, deftly swings back and forth between comedy and drama, and I particularly appreciate how it organically delivers its anti-gun message during a certain key scene clearly influenced by “Bambi” (1942).

As a matter of fact, during the pre-production stage of his film, Bird presented the story to those executives of Warner Brothers as saying “What if a gun had a soul, and didn't want to be a gun?”, and he and his animators did a commendable job of making the robot look as if it really had heart and soul inside its metallic appearance. It may look a bit too obtuse on the surface at first with the thick, ponderous voice performance of Vin Diesel, but it gradually becomes as endearing as the robot hero of “Wall-E” (2008). Like Wall-E, it comes to learn much from the better sides of humanity, and it's really moving to see how it overcomes its inherent nature, and then chooses to do what should be done for Hogarth and many others in the end. Compared to it, those big ugly robots in “Transformers” (2007) and its abominable sequels are nothing but disposable metal objects.

At this point, it is rather hard to believe that, despite lots of praise, the film was a big commercial failure during its theatrical release. Mainly due to the insufficient promotion from Warner Brothers, which was not so eager about another attempt to catch up with Disney after the disastrous failure of “Quest for Camelot” (1998), the film did not draw enough attention from the audiences, and then it was quickly overshadowed by more commercially successful films like “The Sixth Sense” (1999). At least, it has steadily risen during last 20 years as more loved and admired than before, and it still remains as the best achievement in the fruitful career of Bird, who subsequently gave us “The Incredibles” (2004), “Ratatouille” (2007), and “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (2011).

Overall, “The Iron Giant” is a superlative work full of spirit and imagination as well as heart and soul, and it grew on me more after I watched it again at my residence. In short, this is indeed one of the best animation films of all time, and it should be watched by more audiences out there.