HEAVY METAL HAS A CERTAIN SWEETNESS IN `IRON GIANT'.

Byline: David Bloom Staff Writer

In Warner Bros.' animated film ``The Iron Giant,'' it's 1957, and overhead, the Soviet satellite Sputnik is orbiting in silent triumph and menace over an America both more paranoid and more innocent than now.

Down East in the Maine fishing village of Rockwell (yes, Norman could have painted it), young Hogarth Hughes (voiced by Eli Marienthal) doesn't have a father, but he does have a vivid imagination and a soft spot for stray animals. While classmates watch films about ``duck-and-cover'' during an atomic bomb attack, he doodles visions of other worlds.

In the storm-savaged sea nearby, a fisherman (M. Emmet Walsh) fights the waves, only to have his boat collide with what he swears is a giant metal man. Guess what stray creature Hogarth will be bringing home next?

``The Iron Giant'' is based on a 1968 story written by British poet laureate Ted Hughes to comfort his children after the suicide death of their mother, American poet and writer Sylvia Plath.

Out of that grim genesis, the story has taken several forms, including an album by former Who guitarist Pete Townshend (the film's executive producer); as a musical in London; and now, with the addition of some new characters and a different setting, as one of the most affecting and engaging animated films in years.

The film's makers use traditional two-dimensional cel animation and a conscious '50s art design to evoke the world that Hogarth - a puny, bright outsider - lives in with his spunky, hard-working waitress of a single mom (Jennifer Aniston).

The giant (Vin Diesel, his voice spookily distorted) that eventually follows Hogarth home comes from some other part of the universe, and the film never bothers to explain where or why. Even the amnesiac giant doesn't know.

To emphasize his alien nature, the filmmakers cannily used 3-D computer-generated animation to differentiate his hard metal lines from the bucolic woods and fields surrounding him. It's an effective visual trick and helps give the film a distinctive look.

The giant has an appetite for metal, which he feeds by chomping cars, power plants, railroads and the like. Hogarth must figure out how to hide his latest pet, eventually persuading the hepcat artist/junkyard operator who lives on the edge of town (delightfully voiced by Harry Connick Jr.) to help out. Between the giant's budding artistic instincts and the junkyard's wealth of what are for him table scraps, the graveyard for all things metallic proves a perfect place for the giant to stay. Everything appears to be going well.

But conflict quickly arrives in the form of Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald), a frustrated federal agent from the Bureau of Unexplained Phenomena looking to make a name for himself, who's sent to investigate the fisherman's reports of a giant.

A cross between ``The X-Files' '' single-minded Agent Mulder and some sort of square-jawed Dudley Do-Wrong, he eventually calls in the Army to eradicate a menace that he says could have been built, for who knows what purpose, by the Soviets, the Red Chinese, the Martians, even the Canadians.

The film shows a gentle bias against guns, hunting and violence that is ultimately played out in the film's resolution. More generally, the film plays effectively and funnily with the missile-fed fear and paranoia of the early Cold War and is briskly and brightly written. ``The Iron Giant's'' design is a knockout, particularly the knowing visual references to classic pulp science-fiction styles of the mid-century.

And its tale of a gentle giant learning ideas such as the life of the soul, sacrifice for those you love, and the ability to choose good over evil is sweetly touching.

The filmmakers wisely resist excessive cuteness and dopey sidekicks of Disney formula. ``The Iron Giant'' looks great, generates a ton of real laughs and will appeal hugely both to children, who know nothing of the 1950s, and to adults, particularly those old enough to remember what the Cold War was like and how oddly long ago and far away it now seems.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Iron Giant'' (PG; action-oriented violence, mild adult language).

The stars: The voices of Jennifer Aniston, Eli Marienthal, Harry Connick Jr., Vin Diesel and Christopher McDonald.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Brad Bird. Story for the screen by Bird with screenplay by Tim McAnlies, based on ``The Iron Man'' by Ted Hughes. Distributed by Warner Bros.

Running time: One hour, 26 minutes.

Our rating: Four Stars

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PHOTO A young boy and a giant metal creature become friends in ``The Iron Giant,'' which is set in a '50s America that's neck-deep in the Cold War.