Here’s a recipe for a movie: take the basic storyline of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. (Young boy wanders into the local woods and finds a stranded alien being. Young boy befriends alien being, teaching him lessons about humans and love and all that while government authorities look for said alien being. Eventually the government finds the alien being, and some action-packed stuff ensues at the end.) But for subtext, remove ET‘s “broken family in suburbia” themes and replace them with “1950s Nuclear/Red Paranoia” themes. And instead of a short, pudgy and vaguely-humanoid alien being, use a gargantuan robot who dwarfs the Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. Oh, and make it animated.
What you end up with is The Iron Giant, which we watched this weekend.
This is one of those animated films from the last few years that, not being a Disney product, tanked at the box office. And it’s one of those movies that always makes me wonder just why it takes so bloomin’ long for word-of-mouth to work its magic. Like The Shawshank Redemption, this is a wonderful film (with an ungainly-sounding plot, to judge by my scenario above) that has gone on to acclaim in its video release. It’s a superb film. What I loved most was the film’s blend of various design elements. The Giant has the retro-future look that reminds me of those old sci-fi flicks where all the alien cultures used Art-deco design, and toward the end, when the Giant basically opens his built-in can of “Whoop-ass”, he reminds me of the classic War of the Worlds film.
I did think that the film’s very end should have been a bit more ambiguous; it’s a moment where just suggesting a possibility might have been more powerful than simply laying it out in the open. But that’s a very small quibble.
:: We also watched The Mask of Zorro last night. In a time when just about every adventure film that comes along is a dark, CGI-loaded, pedal-to-the-metal event (and I haven’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean yet, although all indications are that it’s good but too long), here’s a refreshing throwback to the days of good stuntwork and editing, actual acting, villains who — while evil — nevertheless have their own reasons for hating the good guys, and action sequences that take place by daylight. Even the James Horner score is entertaining, for a composer who has been treading creative water for years now. (Basically the score includes just about all of the standard “Hornerisms” that fill his scores, right down to his ever-present “evil” motif — imagine if John Williams quoted the Imperial March in every score he wrote — and the blasts of the Shakuhachi flute, an ethnic instrument one doesn’t expect to show up in 1800’s California. But Horner livens the proceedings with Mexican themes and sounds that, while not particularly authentic, at least make the thing a rattling fun listen.)
William Goldman has said that adventure films and comedies are the hardest genres to get right. The Mask of Zorro gets adventure right. What a fine swashbuckler this is.
(In an odd coincidence, but not quite to the level of Weird Convergence, we watched the VHS copy of The Mask of Zorro that we own….and when it was over and we stopped the tape, we discovered that CBS was actually airing the film.)
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