HEAVY METAL (1981) Unsurprisingly, it could've used more heavy metal "Wildly sophomoric". "Stunningly juvenile". "Adolescent tripe". "An erotic sensibility retarded even by the standards of your typical teenage boy". "The animators must never have seen what a real woman looks like, because the women are usually naked and have double D breasts and 12-inch waists, and of course they all succumb to the men's desires". Looking around the net for other reviews and comments regarding this movie, I came across the above comments from various sources. To which I can only say, "You say that as if it were a bad thing!" I hope I never live to see the day which gives us a mature, sophisticated Heavy Metal movie. (regarding the women's bodies...have you people never opened a comic book?) If a Heavy Metal movie were anything BUT a celebration of the adolescent, amped up to an R rating, what the hell would be the point? People say that this is "animation for adults" or whatever; it's not, really, it's for teenagers, and the teenager that lingers in all of us (well, the lucky ones, anyway - I'd feel sorry for anybody without a little teenager left in 'em). (oh, Christ, enough with the oh-matron's already) An almost completely animated (one shot...one ugly, pain-in-the-ass explosion shot...) anthology movie, and each story in Heavy Metal is written and animated by different people, giving us a lot of different visual and writing styles, moods, paces, tones and even genres. Sure, it's hit-and-miss (even within the individual stories), but what anthology isn't? This is also the only anthology flick I can think of which features one vignette before the wraparound story is introduced. After a VERY cool shot of the title, the first vignette, "Soft Landing", doesn't have much going for it (despite its almost nonexistent story being written by Dan O'Bannon) - just an astronaut in a convertible dropping out of the Space Shuttle and, well, driving home, to the tune of some song by somebody called Riggs. It looks Rotoscoped. Then we get the wraparound story, "Grimaldi". The astronaut comes home to his daughter, who promptly asks if he brought her anything. Oh boy, did he ever! He presents her with a glowing green orb, which, having no further use for him, promptly disintegrates him. (four more people get disintegrated in about the next twenty minutes) The ball rolls toward the girl and proceeds, in a deep, super-evil voice provided by August Schellenberg to brag about how evil it is (James Earl Jones is of course the master of this) I love it when people (or glowing green balls) brag about how evil they are. Check out this macho ball speech: "Do not try to escape! You are in my control. I am the sum of all evils. Look carefully; my power infests all times, all galaxies, all dimensions." The ball is the Loc-Nar, and the Loc-Nar tells the girl several tales of the people whose lives it has destroyed. There isn't much to "Grimaldi" animation-wise, but I like the increasingly terrified expressions on the girl's face as the Loc-Nar scares the shit out of her. The first of the Loc-Nar's stories, and my personal favorite (and not just 'cuz it's got the only Blue Oyster Cult song on here), is "Harry Canyon", set in the not-too-distant New York City of the future. (check out the now-unmissable shot of the still-standing World Trade Center, with bridges joining the two towers) Richard Romanus is the voice of Harry, a cab driver and sloppy eater. Harry is a surprisingly complex character for somebody in such a short animated story; Romanus's voiced-over narration takes pains to give us what we expect from him (bragging about his sexual prowess, his macho indifference to killing those who cross him), but his actions are that of an essentially noble character. Harry gets mixed up with an archaeologist's daughter; her father has found the Loc-Nar and some warty, wrinkly Venusians (their leader voiced by a very hoarse Al Waxman) want it very badly indeed. (dig that money case) "Harry Canyon" has a noirish feel to it, like maybe a lower-class Blade Runner. The animation seems a little dingy (presumably by design), nicely capturing the feel of a dirty, urban future. (ironically, this story seems to be a significant influence on the squeaky-clean The Fifth Element) Romanus is excellent as Harry, getting me to accept his arrogant, macho dirty-bum act because of the way he seems much more shy about the nobility he displays throughout. He keeps thinking he shouldn't be involved, but he excuses his continued involvement on an element of danger which he says "really turned me on". When the cops won't help the girl, he lets her stay at his apartment. Ever the gentleman, he goes straight to bed and lets her know that there's beer in the fridge. Right up to his hard decision at the end, he does what most anybody would consider to be The Right Thing. He even asks "Are you sure this is what you want?" before he makes his decision. Really, it's kinda sweet. The end might be a little saddening, but can you blame him for the decision he makes? Maybe. Moral ambiguity? Yep, that's about as thematically sophisticated as this movie gets. "Harry Canyon" also features the MOST subtle sexual invitation by a woman in this movie, when the heroine says "Harry? Can I sleep with you?" and strips naked. Back to the Loc-Nar, who gives us more gems of evil self-glorification like "My evil corrupts the most innocent! I've chosen you because you possess powers you do not yet understand." I love it when evil chooses girls because they possess powers they do not yet understand. The next story is called "Den". John Candy provides the voice of Dan, a geeky teenager (I can see it now: "Draw me a geeky teenager! Yes! That's it!") who experiments with the Loc-Nar when it crashes into his back yard from space. It sends him spiraling into another dimension (trippy) where he becomes Den, a buff, bald, apparently black (actually, he's kinda purplish-blue) dude in a Dungeons-and-Dragons-like world (in the desert, natch) where people ride giant hornets, he has to rescue a beautiful woman from being sacrificed by an evil Loc-Nar-worshipping cult, and later gets caught in a struggle between rival powers for possession of the orb. This story is also narrated in voice-over by its protagonist, hilariously I might add. Candy's narration (always in the high-pitched teenager voice, even when we're seeing this buff adult kick ass or speak more deeply onscreen) might seem out of place to come from a skinny teenage boy (or a buff adult) but he does a great job throughout. His narration is mostly funny in the sincere understatement of Dan's comments. When he beholds a naked woman with huge (huge, I tell you!) breasts before him, I really believe he means it when the voiceover says "She had beautiful eyes!" The ladies here aren't even as subtle as the woman in the last story; after Den saves her life, one woman (voiced by Jackie Burroughs) says "I have no reward to give you, but if any part of me pleases your senses, I will give it to you. Willingly." (giggling uncontrollably) Believe it or not, the other woman (voiced by Marilyn Lightstone) is even worse (or, better) for this: "If you please me, I may let you live." "What must I do?" "Satisfy my appetites." Heh heh heh...I'm dyin' here! The animation here is a little more traditionally "comic-book" than before (ironic, how saying something looks like a comic-book probably means very little to those who know a lot more about comic books than I do), though there is quite a bit of shading and less-than-razor-sharp contours. "Den" reaches a slightly disturbing ending (accompanied by a mighty, Conan-like theme from Elmer Bernstein...and yes, I'm aware that this movie predates the first Conan movie, but I hope you know what I'm talking about when I say music is Conan-like), much like "Harry Canyon" did, both in the protagonist's hard decision (though Dan doesn't seem to sweat it much) and the much more violent turn things take at the end. "Den" might be the only story here that might appeal to adults more than teenagers; for sure, the subject matter is as adolescent as the rest, but Dan is the teenager a lot of us remember ourselves as - but we would likely have looked down on at the time. Next up is "Captain Sternn", probably the most misguided of the stories. Voiced by Eugene Levy (and sounding an awful lot like The Tick), Captain Sternn is on trial on a space station for innumerable crimes. But he's got an angle - an aw-shucks loser named Hanover Fiste (one look at this guy and you can instantly tell the type; not essentially ill-hearted, but no integrity at all), a prosecution witness to whom he's paid thirty-five grand for reasons you might imagine. But Hanover just pocketed a glowing green marble... ...well, things look like they were going somewhere cool in this one. Hanover's change of heart on the witness stand is amusingly-written and passionately delivered (by Rodger Bumpass), but the story takes a terrible turn for the worse with a moment that reminds me of my favorite moment of the war on terrorism so far (a very angry Pakistani fellow flailing at a camera crying out "BOOOOOOSH!!! I KEEEEL YOOOUU!"). While I said I never wanted to see a mature, sophisticated Heavy Metal movie, surely Hanover could have thought of a more entertaining way to strike at Sternn than this. All to Cheap Trick's "Reach Out", no less - the worst offender on a soundtrack full of really terrible "hero rock" (read: the kind of terrible rock song you always hear at the end of movies about football). Animation here is moderately colorful but not very complex, with certain characters enjoying certain exaggerated facial features; the characters of Sternn and Hanover both have ridiculously huge chins, for example (The Tick, indeed!). Listen for John Vernon as the prosecuting attorney, and I loved that one shot of Hanover, finally having cornered Sternn, closing in and leaving little doubt regarding his intentions. Just when it seems this story has gone completely down the toilet, though, again we get a rather disturbing (but amusing) ending when the Loc-Nar apparently decides to suddenly remove its influence. The next story is "B-17", about a World War II bomber crew being harassed by the flying Loc-Nar on a mission. I don't want to give away too much about this one; it's probably the shortest and simplest of the stories here (excepting the intro), but it's atmospheric, creepy and well-drawn, and even manages to take an essentially bad song ("[Take A Ride On] Heavy Metal" by Don Felder) and make it work in the context of the story - after all, flying in a plane over very dangerous territory, the fact that they're riding in the air on a heavy metal object is one of their foremost concerns. This gruesome sort of "gremlin on the wing" story seems to bore a lot of people, but it's my second favorite, behind "Harry Canyon". It looks rotoscoped, but rotoscoped very well. Love that shot of a hand transforming into a gnarled claw. The next story has to be the most baffling. Inexplicably titled "So Beautiful And So Dangerous", it features a UFO descending on the Pentagon (quite intact) to retrieve one of their droids disguised as a human...but they also end up bringing up a busty secretary who's wearing the Loc-Nar as a piece of jewelry. It's baffling for a few reasons. For one thing, nobody's life is destroyed, metaphorically or otherwise. There's nothing dangerous about this girl, contrary to the title. The Loc-Nar's relevance to this story is peripheral at best. And I really could've done without all of the stoner humor; c'mon, this stuff isn't even funny when you're stoned, no matter how much that band during the hyperspace scene is trying to sound like Pink Floyd. But I do like the look and overall feel of most of this one; the animation is very colorful and fairly complex, and Alice Playton's vocal performance as the secretary is marvelous, indignant at being taken against her will but not shocked or surprised in the least that it happens to be aliens and robots that are doing it. The relationship between her and the robot in charge (again voiced by John Candy) is unlikely to say the least, but that's part of what makes much of this vignette, against all probability, very much like screwball comedy. Too bad about how it ends, though; that is, it doesn't. It just kinda stops. If there's one story here that doesn't belong with the rest, it's this one. Now, finally, the Loc-Nar tells the girl "My stories are almost over. I have chosen you because you are the future who could destroy me. With your death, I break the chain for all time. Look into me, one final time. See my evil destroy your race! Then prepare to die!" Wheeee! I love it. I was looking forward to the Loc-Nar destroying humanity. Or at least trying to. But it doesn't. Dammit, I wanted to see the Loc-Nar at least TRY! The last story is the movie's most famous, and most ambitious; enough that when sequel time came along, they basically took this story and stretched it out to feature length. (you know how many people other than myself liked that one? Two. Two people!) "Taarna" has the Loc-Nar crash into a mountain in what appears to be a future where some remnants of modern technology have stuck around, but people have lost the education to use most of them and have regressed to a sword-swinging state. One group of people gets too close and is flooded with green goo; so their mechanical-handed leader (voiced with wonderfully understated venom by Vlasta Vrana) goes kill-crazy and proclaims "Death! Death! Death to all who oppose us!" Okay, so he's not always understated. Not wanting to be on the wrong side, his men proceed to slaughter everybody in sight to the sound of Black Sabbath's "Mob Rules", way too fun of a song to accompany a massacre. It might be too late for salvation, but vengeance will come in the form of Taarna, the last Taarnakian, a hot chick with grey hair who never says anything but will stop for a (ridiculously long) scene of dressing herself before setting off on her quest for vengeance. The sum of "Taarna"'s parts is greater than the whole, I'm afraid. There's a pretty-damn-complex-for-the-time "tracking shot" of her flying over a canyon, and a really cool scene where a kid tries futilely to "bar the door" to keep the invaders out. More cool Conan-esque music, and the score is very intense and well-done during the climactic battle (although there is also some awful instrumental synth-rock, which is apparently what we listen to in this post-technological society). Vrana makes a great villain, choosing to mockingly understate a line like "Somehow, I thought it'd be more difficult to capture a Taarnakian." Most other actors would've (wrongly) amped that up a little. For sure, he's got his yelling-and-screaming moments, but they're not as good as the quiet ones. Even his facial expressions are priceless, like when he instructs his henchmen to bring Taarna to him. He gets a great entrance on a bat (it's not his first entrance, but it's AN entrance) and a well-shown (if not unexpected) comeuppance at the end. What more do you want from a cartoon villain? "Taarna" has some fun action and voice characterizations (also of note is Mavor Moore as the Elder, sounding very much like Orson Welles narrating Manowar's "Defender"), but none of it can make up for the lumbering, awkward pace of the thing which starts and stops with no real flow. It's probably the longest story of the bunch, and it sure feels like it (I like seeing hot chicks with great bods get dressed too, but the scene here was a little much). Scenes of flight (and she works that bird no matter how badly it gets hurt) seem to go on forever; they're quite impressive considering the time when this was made, but likely to be tedious to most people who aren't specifically looking to see how a shot like this would've been done in 1981 as opposed to now. The ending also bends over backwards to give some resolution to the wraparound story, resulting in that terrible exploding-model-filmed-through-a-green-filter shot I mentioned, not to mention the scratching of my head as I wondered what the hell was going on. Nice denoument, though, making thins nice n' cyclical. Heavy Metal achieved a dubious "cult classic" status partly by complete accident, because it was unavailable on video for almost twenty years due to Columbia being unable to secure the rights to the songs on the soundtrack. Why they didn't just go with the original plan to have wall-to-wall Blue Oyster Cult on the video release instead of waiting for so long, I don't know...BOC is way better than any other band on here, except maybe Black Sabbath. Most of the bands here don't even qualify as hard rock. Even by the less intense standards of 1981. But Heavy Metal is of course a reference to the magazine, not the musical genre. At any rate, it was re-released some time ago with a different batch of songs by more modern artists (the only one that comes immediately to mind is Soundgarden). Heavy Metal may be frustrating and often very much a guilty pleasure, but at least it is what it is without apologies or freakin' moralizing at the end, and that's one of the biggest reasons why I like it so much. There's apparently an additional scene and an alternate wraparound story as extras on the DVD. Anyway, that brings me to an idea: somebody should make a DVD player that allows the viewer to choose the songs that are placed in a movie in the case of movies like this (i.e. movies with an almost completely incidental soundtrack). Don't gimme any shit about the integrity of the movie; like I said, this should've been BOC from beginning til end, and when songs are placed in a movie the way they are here, it has nothing to do with the integrity of the movie and everything to do with making money on the soundtrack. It's a good bet that every last person who liked this movie could pick better songs that would work better for him. I mean...Sammy Hagar, or Bal-Sagoth? I know which one I'd pick. BACK TO THE H's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE