HEAVY METAL (1 outta 5 stars)
I was very much into the "Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant" magazines back in my late teens... and I think it was this movie that got me disinterested in the books for good. Yes, there was some good material in the early issues but there was a lot of crap, too. Too bad the crappy elements of HM are all that seemed to make it into this movie... a series of short sci-fi/fantasy cartoons linked by the lame device of some evil, sentient green jewel that sets out to kill the one person that can destroy it... but first, it's going to tell its victim several irrelevant stories. Most of the stories are based on some of the best cartoons from the early years of HM... but the transition to animation doesn't do them any justice. The best cartoon of the bunch, "Captain Stern" is but a pale, pale echo of Bernie Wrightson's original 7 page strip. Every other sequence is just an endless parade of juvenile sex/drug jokes and senseless bloody violence. I guess you could argue that that's all the magazine ever was anyway... but at least there was an artistic vision behind it all. There is no art in this movie whatsoever... just clumsy animation, bad writing, crummy voice work and lousy inappropriate heavy metal music (hey, the movie is called "Heavy Metal"... better cram some heavy metal music in it!) I just recently saw the movie again to see if it was as bad as I remembered. Guess what? It is!
I was very much into the "Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant" magazines back in my late teens... and I think it was this movie that got me disinterested in the books for good. Yes, there was some good material in the early issues but there was a lot of crap, too. Too bad the crappy elements of HM are all that seemed to make it into this movie... a series of short sci-fi/fantasy cartoons linked by the lame device of some evil, sentient green jewel that sets out to kill the one person that can destroy it... but first, it's going to tell its victim several irrelevant stories. Most of the stories are based on some of the best cartoons from the early years of HM... but the transition to animation doesn't do them any justice. The best cartoon of the bunch, "Captain Stern" is but a pale, pale echo of Bernie Wrightson's original 7 page strip. Every other sequence is just an endless parade of juvenile sex/drug jokes and senseless bloody violence. I guess you could argue that that's all the magazine ever was anyway... but at least there was an artistic vision behind it all. There is no art in this movie whatsoever... just clumsy animation, bad writing, crummy voice work and lousy inappropriate heavy metal music (hey, the movie is called "Heavy Metal"... better cram some heavy metal music in it!) I just recently saw the movie again to see if it was as bad as I remembered. Guess what? It is!