I recently had a chance to take a look at Heavy Metal, the 1981 anthology animated sci-fi and fantasy film, produced by the godfather of the Ghostbuster franchise, Ivan Reitman. Based on the anthology comic-book by the same name and notorious for its adult themes (principally gore and boobies) the movie is considered a boundary-pushing cult film in the realm of animation, second only perhaps to the films of Ralph Bakshi.
Heavy Metal incorporates stories of many genres and styles (many taken directly from the comic) as well as heavy metal music from star acts of the day. As the movie is split into various episodes, I will also review each section separately…
Harry Canyon – For my money, the worst part of the whole movie experience. A noire-esque story about a New York cab driver from the future trying to save a beautiful woman from gangsters who are after an artifact called the Loc-Nar (the frame-narrative plot-device of the movie which connects all the stories). On top of the story being very straight-forward and predictable, it resorts to unapologetic fan-service way too soon. And I really don’t care for the animation in this one either.
If you want to see a good futuristic movie about a New York cab driver, see Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element instead.
Den – Based on the iconic male fantasy of a geek turned muscle-bound adventurer, Den is at least a moderate step up from the Harry Canyon episode. It’s still a very macho piece with loads of cleavage on-screen, but at least it also has a little more of a story, some really good action-sequences and an epic voice-over by John Candy. This is where the movie really starts for me.
Captain Sternn – The first and better of the film’s two more comical and cartoony episodes. This one deals with a slime-ball character Captain Sternn being trialed for numerous, heinous acts and his key-witness (the paid-off Hanover) suddenly turning into a Hulk-like monster who chases him down a space-station. The more cartoony animation style stands out from the more realistically done segments and I find the ending of this short hilarious. It’s a great dark comedy piece.
B-17 – A World War II plane’s dead crew is turned into zombies in-flight with the pilot forced to parachute to safety. However, he lands in an aeroplane graveyard and is sieged by an army of zombie soldiers. This is an excellent, but unfortunately short horror-inspired section. Still, it’s one of my favourite sections of the whole movie and definitely worth seeing.
So Beautiful and So Dangerous – This is the second goofy episode which deals with aliens, horny robots and flying space-ships while stoned. It definitely lacks the class (amazingly) of the Captain Sternn section, but is so crazy and off-the-wall that it’s actually very funny. Once again, John Candy’s excellent voice-over makes this one worth watching, but it’s definitely the second weakest of all the shorts.
Taarna – The last episode takes up the final half-hour of the movie, but is totally worth it and easily the best section of the whole film. A woman warrior, Taarna, has to avenge the deaths of a fallen city by defeating the evil army controlled by the Loc-Nar. This is the only short where the nudity for once comes off as classy and artistic rather than flat-out smutty, the animation quality is excellent, the action is great and the story really has a solid spaghetti western type feel.
This section is definitely geared for the swords & sorcery crowd, but it’s so head and shoulders above the rest of the movie, it’s the very reason to sit through even the slightly crappier sections of the film.
As for the movie’s selection of heavy metal music, it’s nice – but apart from Journey and Black Sabbath, I didn’t really think any of the other acts or songs stood out particularly, though I did feel all the music in the film was used appropriately. I think, however, that the original score music, composed by Elmer Bernstein, is actually the highlight of the movie’s score.
Heavy Metal isn’t a whole-heartedly solid movie, but the good thing about it is that if one section doesn’t quite please you, the next one is usually going to be totally different. However, if you don’t like to see tits, drug-use, gore or foul language in a movie, then you’re not going to enjoy it as most of the segments feature some or all of those elements. The movie is a little trashy and cheap in places, but it also has brilliant animation, some pretty good comedy and a few excellent stories.
Whether or not you’ll like the movie as a whole, I whole-heartedly recommend seeing it…
Score: 3½ out of 5
Score breakdown:
- +1 Excellent animation
- +1 Captain Sternn, B-17 and Den
- +1 Taarna
- +½ John Candy
- -1 Harry Canyon
- -½ Even I feel embarrassed by the high amount of fun-bags in this movie.
