Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)

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nHeavy Metal 2000 (2000)

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nDirectors: Michael Coldeway & Michel Lemire

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nVoice Actors: Julie Strain, Michael Ironside, Billy Idol

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nIt took eight people to write Heavy Metal 2000, the film Inwill be reviewing today, and you know how that goes, the more writers a filmnhas, the worse the movie is going to be! And this movie had eight writers! Wasnthe resulting script a disaster? Or did these eight writers achieve their goalsnof making a movie that paid tribute to one of the greatest sci-fi/horrornmagazines on the planet? So anyhow, this is Heavy Metal 2000 (2000), the sequelnto the animated cult classic anthology film Heavy Metal (1981). Now if you knownanything about the original film, then you probably know that it’s composed ofnvarious stories, all done by different animation houses. This amalgamation ofntalent yielded an melting pot of short films with some of the worst and some ofnthe best animation you will ever see, so it’s interesting in that sense.nNothing stays the same for very long, just when you think you’ve had enough ofna particular short, soon another artistic style and voice takes over. Thensoundtrack on Heavy Metal is a memorable one, including many awesome rock andnroll bands from the 70’s and 80’s. Today I review the sequel, Heavy Metal 2000.nThe thing to remember while watching this sequel is that it’s vastly differentnthan the first film.

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nIn contrast to the first Heavy Metal (1981), this sequelnisn’t an anthology film; Heavy Metal 2000 sticks to only one story, thisnimmediately shatters our expectations of it. Fans of the first film expectednthis sequel to maintain the anthology format, so they were disappointed tondiscover that with this sequel, they were going to get just one feature lengthnstory. I enjoy the amalgamation of different artistic talents that an anthologynbrings, but I also appreciate the fact that this sequel was going for somethingndifferent. In its defense I will say that even though Heavy Metal 2000 isn’t annanthology, it still manages to retain that feel of what Heavy Metal Magazine isnall about. If you didn’t already know, both of these movies are inspired bynHeavy Metal Magazine, a magazine totally devoted to science fiction, horror andnfantasy comics. It is a magazine filled with stories that are exactly like thenstory we see in Heavy Metal 2000. As a fan of this magazine, I can tell you I’venread my fare share of issues, most of the stories include half naked heroinesnfighting muscular evil dudes, sorcerers, magicians, aliens, you name it. Manynof the stories include nudity, violence and gore in one form or another. Thisnis why I say that Heavy Metal 2000 captures the feel of the magazine; it hasnall the elements you’d expect to find on any given issue. Yet even though HeavynMetal 2000 is inspired by Heavy Metal magazine and gets everything right innterms of the spirit of the magazine, Heavy Metal 2000 is actually based on angraphic novel called ‘Melting Pot’, which was written by Kevin Eastman, SimonnBisley and Eric Talbot. Kevin Eastman created the original Teenage Mutant NinjanTurtles (along with co-creator Peter Laird) and is the current publisher andneditor (and has been for years) of Heavy Metal Magazine, so he truly knows whatnHeavy Metal is all about. This explains why he is one of the writers of thenfilm. 

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nSo let’s keep things in perspective, Heavy Metal 2000 isn’tnShakespeare and it never intends to be. Heavy Metal Magazine has always beennabout the type of stories that sci-fi/horror fans love to read. Stories fillednwith the fantastic, the horrifying, the shocking. This magazine has always beenna love letter to low brow entertainment, it’s the kind of literature that somenwill no doubt consider immature, and they’d be right, these stories are oftenntimes juvenile in nature, but that’s the nature of the beast. And so, HeavynMetal 2000 basks in its b-movie roots, unashamedly so. Trust me when I say thatnone liners will be spoken, in fact, you’ll feel that it is the only languagenthese characters speak. In this film you will see females being treated likensex objects and the females loving it. For example, Julie Strain does the voicenof the main character in the film, a bad ass lady who goes by the name of ‘Jules’.nShe’s you’re a-typical bad ass babe. During the 90’s Bad Girls were the rave ofnthe comic book world; suddenly every comic book was about Bad Girls with bignboobs and even bigger guns! During those days we had comics like Vampirella,nLady Death and Danger Girl. And though Heavy Metal 2000 was released at thenbeginning of the new millennium, it still retains that 90’s Bad Girl vibe tonit. You’ll notice the emphasis on showing Jules breasts bouncing all the waynthrough the movie, sometimes the camera will focus entirely on her ass, or takenits time showing her taking a shower, it’s all very gratuitous, designed to titillatenteenage boys. You should see the extras on the Heavy Metal 2000 dvd, where Mrs.nStrain talks all about how much she loves being the sexy sci-fi chick andnshowing some skin. She’s the ultimate tease for young boys (and men in general)nkind of like a sci-fi version of Elvira. She knows you like her jugs, and she’sngot no problem showing them to you, in fact, she loves the adulation she getsnfrom it. Julie Strain obviously infused the character of Jules with her ownnpersona, so much so that they even share the same name. 

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nOn this film, Jules is out for revenge. You see, this powernhungry madman who goes by the name of Tyler is on his way to a distant planetnthat holds the gates to immortality. Tyler has the key, and he aims to use itnin order to acquire immortality. Problem is that whoever holds the key goesninsane from lust of power, and so throughout the movie Tyler destroys, rapesnand kills anything on his path. Too bad for him that on one of his joy rides henends up killing Jules family and her people. To make matters worse, Tylernkidnaps Jules sister because he thinks she’s hot. Now Jules is on a race to trynand stop Tyler from acquiring immortality, while avenging her people andnrescuing her sister!
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nI’ve always had a couple of problems with this movie. Numbernone, the animation is not the best. Maybe it’s because its old school, but I’venseen old school animation films with excellent traditional hand drawnnanimation, so maybe it’s just the animation on this show isn’t really that good.nThen again, it’s American animation, which has never distinguished itself fornbeing excellent. And they do that thing where they mix computer generatednimages with traditional hand drawn animation and it sucks big time because backnin those days computer animation was just getting started, so whatever computernanimation the squeezed into any given scene looks amateurish by today’snstandards. Then again, maybe I’ve been spoiled rotten by anime films. Thatnbeing said, once I got accustomed to the films look and the choppy animation, Infound myself having fun with it. Same story with Ralph Bakshi films, you justngotta get accustomed to the fact that the animation is a little rough aroundnthe edges.

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nHeavy Metal 2000 has its moments, like when Jules and Tylernmeet up on this pleasure planet of sorts, filled with strippers with sixnbreasts and aliens from all sorts of planets, it reminded me a bit of thencantina scene from Star Wars, if the cantina scene from Star Wars had beennrated ‘R’. And by the way, speaking of this films rating, they don’t even makenlive action ‘R’ rated films like this one today! I mean, this is a hard ‘R’nrated film! There’s tons of gratuitous nudity, profanity is common place, andnthe gore, well, even for a cartoon it’s over the top at times. In that sense,nthis film is extremely rare, it’s an animated ‘R’ rated film! You don’t see onenof those every day. Last time I saw one of those was Richard Linklater’s  A Scanner Darkly (2006), another one thatncomes to mind is South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999). Every once in anwhile, an adventurous filmmaker will make one from time to time, but the truthnis that the R rated animated film is rare because (with rare exceptions) theynare not marketable. For a time there, animated films for adults where trying tonfind its corner in the market with films like Fritz the Cat (1972), Fire and Ice (1983) and American Pop (1981), but I guess it proved too difficult to get thencommon American adult to think of animation as anything more than the stuff ofnSaturday Morning Cartoons or children’s films. So Heavy Metal 2000 is a rarenbird, on this one axes slice people in half, brains are blown to smithereensnand sex robots can be bought at the corner of the street.

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nThe soundtrack of the first film is one of the most memorablenthings about it; it included old school rock and roll bands like Blue OysternCult, Stevie Nicks, Journey, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, Devo and even SammynHagar. So of course, the soundtrack for Heavy Metal 2000 had to amass anninteresting amount of bands as well. On this sequel we get the likes ofnPantera, Monster Magnet, Coal Chamber, Bauhaus, Insane Clown Pose, Queens ofnthe Stone Age, System of a Down and Puya. The problem for me with thisnsoundtrack is that sometimes, the visuals don’t match with the music. Sometimesnthere’s a real hardcore song going on and it just doesn’t go with the visuals.nThe same thing happened when Dario Argento started using heavy metal in hisnhorror movies, the heavy metal just didn’t mix with the visuals, thank god he stoppedndoing it after a while.  This isnsomething very important on any film, the visuals have to go in accordance andnsometimes even to the rhythm of the music. Not so here where songs arenapparently randomly inserted into a scene without rhyme or reason. It feelsnlike the songs where only inserted into the film in order to sell a soundtracknand not because the song is perfect for the scene. This truly sucks in my book.

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nThe other problem I had with it is the weak direction andnthe editing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any movie that uses fade to black sonoften! This is one of the signs of amateurish filmmaking, fade to black is whatnyou resort to when you’ve got nowhere else to go because you forgot to film antransition or establishing shot. There’s no way to flow from one scene to thennext so you fade to black. Well, they do this all the time in Heavy Metal 2000nand it just reeks of bad filmmaking. So there’s unevenness in the editing andnthe music. Strange thing is that even with all these imperfections, I still managed to have fun with Heavy Metal 2000. Its dialog, sense of humor andnmentality is so comic bookish that I ended up surrendering to it and having anblast. It’s a film made for adults who want to feel 12 years old again. It’snthe kind of film in which when the masses are calling his name, the villainnsays “Blind adulation makes me so horny! Get me a wench!” At first I hated HeavynMetal 2000 with a passion, but it’s grown on me over the years. It’s rude, raw,nloud, imperfect and sexist, but that’s exactly the way it should be, or else itnwouldn’t be Heavy Metal. The original Heavy Metal film is superior in the sensenthat if offers a larger variety of stories and styles, the animation is anmillion times superior and because the soundtrack is infinitely more melodicnand plain cool, but this sequel is definitely worth a watch, if you can getnover the imperfections.

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nRating: 3 out of 5

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