Heavy Metal Review

 

Animation fans i'm a man of my word and when I said i'd be doing two reviews based on adult animated movies I really did mean it. I have to say that it's been a joy covering these adult animated films just because there are so few adult animated films out and so I mainly end up watching films that are aimed at and made for a younger audience and after seeing this film I have to wonder why there aren't more adult animated films out there and so here is my review of the 1981 animated classic "Heavy Metal" enjoy.

There kind of is a plot to this film which is an father brings home an alien object and the object shows the father's daughter the effect that the object has had on several people. I have to say that I liked the plot of the framing of this film since the story was engaging and it was a great way to have all of these other stories take place without having them interact or contradict each other but that said some of the stories are pretty dull.

Starring in the film is Percy Rodriguez as Loc-Nar , Don Francks as Grimaldi and Holden , Caroline Semple as Girl and Richard Romanus as Harry Canyon. Also starring in the film is Harvey Atkin as Alien and Henchman , John Candy as Desk Sergeant , Den and Robot , Marilyn Lightstone as Whore , Susan Roman as Girl and Satellite , Jackie Burroughs as Katherine Wells , Eugene Levy as Captain Lincoln F. Sternn and Harold Ramis as Zeke.

Given the amount of talented actors that are in this film what i'm about to say next won't come as a surprise to anyone. Since yeah the acting in the film is so freaking good all of the actors involved with each of the stories do a good job of getting across what there character is like is the short time that each story has and that's something that not alot of actors can do and so to see it done here multiple times is such a good thing in my opinion.

Now even tho Nelvana is the studio that gets alot of credit for working on the film the animation for the segments was handled by several different companies those being TVC London , Halas & Batchelor Animation Ltd , Atkinson Film Arts , Votetone and Boxcar Animation Studios Inc. I will say that the overall quality of the animation is pretty high and while there are some segments that aren't as well animated as others overall the animation in the film is really good and can at times be beautiful to watch as well as stunning to see.

I'm honestly impressed that the film makers managed to get such an impressive cast for what was basically an independent film. Don't get me wrong the film had a big studio behind it but everything in this film just screams independent film from the fact that it's an adult animated feature film to the fact that it's an anthology both of which are things that don't really equal major box office or major film is this an independent film and I love it.

This film is the first first of two films based on the magazine Heavy Metal which is still being published to this very day. I have no idea if any of the stories featured in this film are stories that are featured in any issue of the magazine or if the stories are original to the film but either way i'm glad that the makers of this film took a chance on such a little known magazine and made something truly special because of it.

To me both this and Fritz The Cat are adult cartoons not just for the fact that they feature nudity and drugs but also because of there content and ideas. Take for example this film which tells us that any one good or bad with good intentions can be corrupted and if that does happen then they'll end up paying for it which is such a mature idea and running theme in the movie and hell it makes the movie more mature then alot of animated films released today.

This film has a running time of an hour and thirty minuets which is one of the films biggest issues for me. Since alot of the stories in this film go on for far to long and thus become boring to watch which is a shame because those same stories start of good enough and have good ideas in them but because they go on for far to long I personally found myself loosing interest in them and wishing for those exact same stories to end.

Yeah i'm going to be honest with you there is a lot of gore in this film and if that puts you off then don't watch this film. Since you'll be seeing gore at least once or twice in every segment which since I like gory horror film,s I didn't mind seeing it since to me it made sense that a mature animated film would feature a lot of gore and the gore I thought was very well animated and wasn't just there for shock value either it was there to help tell a story.

For once I have to talk about this film's soundtrack because honestly the amount of amazing bands and singers that lent songs to this film is insane. Doing songs for the film is Jerry Riggs , Blue Öyster Cult , Donald Fagen , Stevie Nicks , Journey , Cheap Trick , Don Felder , Grand Funk Railroad , Nazareth , Sammy Hagar , Trust , Black Sabbath and Devo , just the fact that they managed to get this many amazing acts involved should be more then enough to get any rock fan more then interested in seeing this movie.

Overall this is such a good film and it's one that recommend all fans of rock music go and watch just due to the artists involved. That however doesn't mean that this is a perfect because it's honestly not in fact the issues that I had with the film are ones that i've covered in this review and for me at least are pretty big issues and are ones that I can't ignore as such this film gets a solid 6 out of 10 from this rock fan.

All the images that I used in this review were gathered from Google Images and for a change I went nowhere else for the images. Yeah since I just went to Google Images for the images I have no choice but to recommend Google Images for images from this film but I will say don't expect to find any high definition images simply because this film came out in the early eighties but there are some pretty high definition images to be found tho.