I remember seeing shots of this film and thinking, "My god, they were liberal on nudity and violence back in the 80's." It turns out that they were, in fact, as well as depicting drug use amongst aliens. But this is an adult animation. Sure there's goofy aliens in some scenes and dumb-as-bricks warriors in others, but the overall story is about this green Orb who has caused some downright horrific in its past. It chooses to settle down and talk with a chosen girl about its exploits and how she is a part of its story. If you haven't seen the film, picture it like a long episode of He-Man back in the days of Dungeons & Dragons marathons and way too many pot-fueled stories of alternate universes. There's an over-abundance in breasts throughout the film, much like most of the D&D fantasy artwork of the time, and there was pressure, I'm sure, to play it up as something they could do in this adult animation. Some of the animation was overdone but it looked better than some of Bakshi's animations. The rotoscoping effects look great as well, and the skies in some of the sequences were very dreamlike. I personally was not attached to the various pop artists they got for the film, and to see that the VHS release was delayed on account of them makes me cringe. I hardly noticed the music at all. I found that it was called Heavy Metal because the idea for the film came from the Heavy Metal magazine where a handful of these stories came from, but I don't understand the tie-in of the title to anything in the movie itself. Overall, I recommend this film to animation fans and fantasy/sci-fi fans. It doesn't really have anything to do with heavy metal music so for you music fans, you might feel ripped off (although Sammy Hagar singing about heavy metal is included).
Review of Heavy Metal
