The Plot: Set during the Cold War, a giant alien robot crashes to earth. He soon forms an unlikely friendship with a nine-year-old boy, who tries to protect the machine when a paranoid government agent becomes determined to destroy it. The Subtext: A political, pacifistic parable with an anti-gun agenda. Based on the novella by ex-Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, The Iron Giant (the booked was titled The Iron Man in the US) is a more delicate version of a children's story imbued with political aspirations, less heavy-handed and on-the-nose than something like, say, Pocahontas. Though the Cold War setting is obvious to the tale, the subtext is played out more through Mansley's (the government agent, voiced by Christopher McDonald) own agenda, ensuring that the symbolism doesn't detract from the child-friendly main story. The Giant's (Vin Diesel) stark reaction to guns and weaponry (which in turn cause him to become violent) is a confutation of the US's ongoing obsession with action of a bellicose nature, and the phrase "an armed society is a polite society" repeats throughout the film, echoing like an oddly prescient incantation.
