Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal, the movie, is great encapsulation of Heavy Metal, the magazine. Heavy Metal was and is an anthology of the best of American and European comic writers and artists. It has carried the work of such masters as Moebius, Druillet, Liberatore, Bernie Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, Arthur Sydam, Enki Bilal, Richard Corben and Simon Bisley. The movie adapts some of the great stories from the glory days of the magazine.

The movie is much like the magazine: a mixed bag of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comedy, and erotica. Some of it is good, some not. My personal favorites are Harry Canyon, Den, Captain Sternn, B-17, and Tarna. Harry Canyon is a sci-fi tale of thugs, femme fatales, and cynics ala Dashell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, transported to the future. It has been cited as an inspiration for The Fifth Element, by some; but it bears some resemblance to the works of French artist, Moebius, who created designs for The Fifth Element. Moebius also factors into Tarna, as the entire look of this sequence is almost xeroxed from Moebius' Arzach stories.

Captain Sternn is the anti-hero/criminal from Bernie Wrightson, co-creator of Swamp Thing and illustrator of a beautiful edition of Frankenstein. This is a fun sequence, full of comedy and chaos, much like the Sternn stories. Sternn has more than a slight resemblance to a certain Kryptonian.

B-17 captures the flavor of the old EC horror comics, like Tales from the Crypt and the Vault of Horror. The sequence features design work from Mike Ploog, a horror comics master and artist of Marvel's Man-Thing. It has a nice creepy, decayed atmosphere and lets the visuals tell the story.

Den is adapted from Richard Corben's tales. The melon-breasted women that Corben is known for are on fine display here. We also get the humor that also permeates Corben's work. John Candy was quite good here, giving Den the perfect adolescent voice.

Tarna is the most lush sequence, with sweeping vistas and the use of rotoscoping for the character. It is also quite violent. Again, it owes a great deal to Moebius' Arzach.

So Beautiful, So Dangerous is pretty forgettable, with juvenile humor and boring animation. Soft Landing is fairly pointless, except to serve as a title sequence. The whole linking device is unnecessary, as the segments bear little relation to one another and are stronger as separate entities. The soundtrack is great, with most pieces capturing the flavor of the animation.

Ultimately, the uneven stories and lower budget animation holds this movie back. The movie is best viewed as an anthology, rather than a complete story, and with a forgiving eye to the budget. With that said, it's still entertaining and an important work of adult animation.

Grimaldi returns home from a Space Shuttle trip landing his Corvette through the atmosphere. He bring home a present for his daughter, a glowing green orb called the Loc-Nar. It turns out to be a sum of all evil. It disintegrates Grimaldi and shows the little girl how he destroys the lives of people it touches in a series of short stories.

The animation is dated with the 70s style. The material is violent and full of scantily clad women. It is sexist and juvenile. It just does it with such abandon that it fully develops what it promises. It revels in the big boobs women in tiny outfits and muscle bound men. It's grotesque. It's got good music. It's a cult classic and fully deserves to be.

Trying to con Harry Canyon in futuristic New York City ("big deal"), striking a deal with Den, having sex with a robot (or, as he puts it, using "mechanical assistance"), bribing Hanover Fiste to testify on your behalf in court, praying for Taarna to save you. None of these things have anything in common except for the Loch-nar, a green ball supposedly containing the essence and entirety of evil.

It doesn't matter if none of this makes complete sense or if it's even that good in terms of plot construction. This is Heavy Metal!

The concept of this 1981 animated experiment is two-fold: show good and evil in a constant state of flux, and bring to life the richness and erotic energy of the popular animated magazine. Add to that some science fiction, a slight reverence for history (in the beautiful ghoul scene in the WWII B-17) and a juvenile insight into drugs and sex, and you have the definition of my '80s youth culture.

I was one of those kids who'd sneak an issue of Heavy Metal, found on the magazine stands in the local drug store next to the grocery store where my father did his weekly shopping, inside another magazine and stare at the drawings, looking for some violence and humor ... and naked women with bi g breasts. I did the same thing whenever I got my hands on a National Lampoon and, if I was lucky, Hustler.

It's pre-pubescence at its hormonal best! And seeing it again as an adult brings all that excitement back to me. Every story, every piece of music ... God, every shot for that matter -- they all bring me back to being 10 years old and wrestling with my older cousin as she tried to block my eyes when the chick Harry Canyon picks up off the street strips and slides into bed with him to the tune of Journey's "Open Arms."

This movie wasn't meant to be cinematic greatness. It was meant to be a boy's fantasy and his coming of age. Sometimes we take these things too seriously. A good movie is a good movie, and a good memory is a good memory. Let's leave it at that ... and let me get a whiff of that stuff the spaceship pilots have lined along the floor...

HEAVY METAL (1981) **1/2 (Voices of : John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, John Vernon) {Featuring songs by : Devo, Sammy Hagar, Blue Oyster Cult, Donald Fagan, Stevie Nicks, Nazareth, Grand Funk Railroad, Journey, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, Don Felder, Riggs, Trust} Landmark animated adaptation of the cult magazine "Heavy Metal" is a dizzying soup of noir, science fiction, fantasy and sex vignettes all strung together by the shared element of a glowing green meteorite of pure evil called Loc-Mar {which by the way has parallels to the glowing suitcase in "Pulp Fiction" and the eerie car trunk of "Repo Man"; just food for thought} that threatens a little girl as it recalls the stories for her. Somewhat dated by today's standards but nonetheless a trippy little piece of art. It's recent release on video (1996) was held up primarily by music rights for all the songs being used; includes THX sound and an excised segment "Neverwhere Land" that was cut due to running time. Executive produced by Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters"). Directed by Gerald Potterton.

I have to admit, I loved this movie from when I first saw it. A true cult classic, and second in Midnight Movie viewing only to Rocky Horror.

I think one reason that this movie was looked forward to for so long is that it was unavailable for so long. I remember around 1984 when a release was planned, and a dispute with the multiple musicians caused it to be pulled. But thankfully this was finally resolved, so we can own it again.

I bought a pirate copy when i was in Japan in 1988 (On Beta no less), and almost played it to death. And having been a fan of the comic when I could find it, I think it told the stories very well. I admit that the "green sphere" link was silly and did not work, and that the original "carousel" concept would have been much better (watch the DVD release for details on this). The simple fact that I have bought 3 copies of this time and still own all 3 of them says something about the movie.

Harry Canyon, Den, and Taarna are the be the most remembered pieces of this movie. Each in itself could even be fleshed out to hour long length, and still be enjoyable. So Beautiful, So Dangerous is enjoyable, and Harold Ramis and John Candy steal the show with their voices ("Hey man, you got any of that plutonium niborg left?"). And I admit, the film version of the story was MUCH more enjoyable then the original one from the comic.

PS: Watch for the cameo of a destroyed USS Enterprise. I love pointing that out to people that miss it.