That is until the military finds out about the giant metal man and decides to hunt him down and make him part of its weapons arsenal.
At the exact moment when Pixar had taken over animation, Brad Bird takes a step back in time and uses the old-school, hand-drawn variety for this throwback to the sci-fi films of the ‘50s. A young Maine boy befriends a towering gentle giant robot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and tries to hide him and make him his own secret pal. That is until the military finds out about the giant metal man and decides to hunt him down and make him part of its weapons arsenal. There’s more than a whiff of E.T. at work here, but Bird’s nod to the Cold War era is a touching piece of artisanal nostalgia.