HEAVY METAL (1981)

HEAVY METAL (1981)

Tagline : A universe of mystery. A universe of magic. A universe of awesome good...and terrifying evil.

(Animation, Adventure, Fantasy) [R] 

This movie is a cult classic, most likely for the animated nudity, but also because the soundtrack is mind-blowing, the animation was in some ways groundbreaking and really at the time nothing like this was really being made at all. As a kid I remember this thing being ridiculously hard to get a hold of and the only copies I had seen were bootlegged to VHS from showings on cable. It was like trying to find someone who owned a cordless phone in the 80’s. The DVD wasn’t released until 1999. The movie also had issues regarding the rights to the music so there was a bunch of garbage going on with its theatrical release as well. 

This is an anthology so I kind of had to break down the segments to come up with a rating I thought was fair to the effort the animators etc. put in. The worldwide gross for the movie wasn’t even $1 million. It cost over $9 million just to make. 

SOFT LANDING / GRIMALDI – This segment consists of an astronaut that lands at his mansion, from space, in a Chevy Corvette. Yes, that is correct. He then shows his daughter what he found while he was in space. For some SOFT LANDING and GRIMALDI are separated segments, but there is no reason to do that. 

This story winds itself between the other stories, but everything is very loosely connected by a green orb that is basically the essence of evil. The art is pretty cool, but there is very little dialog and outside of the concept it’s just okay. Soundtrack wise it’s got one of the cooler songs in the entire movie. Rating [5]

HARRY CANYON – This is about a cab driver in 2031 living in NY. The place has gotten so dangerous he had a button in his cab that will disintegrate anyone that messes with him. He runs into a woman who has aliens chasing after her for the green orb we got in the first segment. We find out the orb is called the Loc-Nar. 

The story is okay, I actually liked HARRY CANYON’s character so much, that I used his mannerism’s in one of DARK 30’s storylines. The art is rough as hell for this one and it just feels overly detailed, and under colored. I get the style they were going for, but even the girl, (which I am sure the producers were trying to sell young dudes on) doesn’t even really look that great. As an artist, I am picky about this stuff. I will say the design choices were pretty cool. It also seems like a lot of the atheistic probably influenced the cab scenes in THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Rating [4] 

DEN – In this one a teenager voiced by John Candy is transported to another planet by electricity hitting the Loc-Nar. He just has it laying around his house. On the new planet he is a HE-MAN type warrior who gets caught between dueling psychopath’s who want to rule the planet. 

This story is one of the more humorous, but even that and John Candy cant’ fix it completely. The art for me in this segment was a massive miss. Some of the concepts were cool though. Rating [3]

CAPTAIN STERNN – This story would be like if the most corrupt Washington politician was on trial for everything they were hiding. Only it’s set on a space station with aliens from all kinds of galaxies at the trial. Sternn has an angle that will get him out of this mess where he is most definitely guilty as heck. 

In this one we get probably the 3rd best artwork and the storyline is interesting. I dug this thing, it’s also got a bit of a fun soundtrack. I did not love the ending. Rating [4]

B-17 – In this one the crew of a WWII B-17 bomber is getting picked off one by one in a massive battle. The Loc-Nar just shows up to make the crews day even worse. 

I liked this story quite a bit. It reminds me of something I would put in an issue of DARK 30 and is the only story in the movie I would say is basically “horror”. It’s also got some incredible art and the soundtrack for this one is awesome. It is very short but great. Rating [6] 

SO BEAUTIFUL & SO DANGEROUS – This one is about a secretary that gets kidnapped accidentally by aliens while the Pentagon is trying to figure out what is causing them radiation sickness. 

This segment has some interesting lines and is probably the most lighthearted of them all, but it’s also just pretty much thrown in this damn thing. The artwork is great, but the dialog is moronic and even as a teenager the only thing I remembered from this segment was one of the officials in the Pentagon saying “my constituents are turning green, their growing arms on their backs”.  It’s just kind of snuck in there, but it’s great. The Loc-Nar is hardly involved in this thing. Rating [2]

TAARNA – This one is the climax of the movie where the Loc-Nar turned a wasteland colony into blood-thirsty power hungry savages that destroy everything in their path. When they get to one city the elders there call on some barely dressed chick to come save them. I mean, she’s maybe wearing more than LeeLoo from THE FIFTH ELEMENT, but not much more. 

As a teenager I was impressed by the smoothness of the animation in this segment, but now I just feel like it’s slow and clunky. Especially after reviewing animation from the same time period. Even THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN has quicker moving, more imaginative and often better looking segments. If you watch the fight scenes in this movie over again, you will see what I mean. Rating [4] 

Overall I have to give this thing a 4 out of 7 as a cumulative rating. There were several opportunities to make this thing more cohesive and exciting. Instead a lot of scenes dragged out and some of the stories were just a bit too rough to get a higher rating. At this point, I am more likely to listen to the soundtrack than watch the actual movie. However, I do see how it intrigued animation fans for decades and I appreciate the level of effort it took to make.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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