Review of Heavy Metal (1981) by Eric H — 29 Oct 2009

This has always been on my list of cult faves to watch, but it never really made it very far up my list mostly just because of a lack of specific information about the film. All I knew was that Heavy Metal was a cartoon for adults that had a pretty strong, cult following. Recently I found out that my father-in-law, John Dorman, did some storyboard and layout work for this film. So with that extra information, and the added convenience of Netflix instant view making it readily available for instant gratification for me, I decided that I would finally watch the film.

This is one weird movie. Very much a peculiarity of its time and place, it really hasn't aged very well. I had heard of the movie's reputation for copious cartoon nudity, but the situations surrounding that nudity often range on the level of late night Cinemax soft-core porn quality plotting. There is an element of nerd fantasy at play here, but that's mostly overshadowed by the soft-core porn tone of the movie at large.

I suppose the thing that was revolutionary about the movie at the time was that it was a cartoon movie that was expressly not meant for kids. But I think some of that is watered down now since cartoons have largely broken out of that taboo on the strength of Japanese animation, which was not really crossing over to our culture in 1981 so much. But what is still amusing about Heavy Metal is an old-fashoned sense of nerdy comic-book artist perversity. While I don't think he was a contributor here, the work in Heavy Metal reminded me a great deal of the kind of mischievously perverse and perverted sense of humor in R. Crumb's work. Visually, the artwork is reminiscent because of his characteristic juxtaposition of uber-nerdy imagery with uber-sexual imagery. And while Heavy Metal doesn't have the darker, weightier, more satirical overtones of R. Crumb's work, it does seem to have to tone. And yes, R. Crumb is an acquired taste, but for those who have acquired it, Heavy Metal might satisfy.

But in general, I think the movie is a bit disjointed and the animation is a bit clunky. Animation is an artform so affected by technology that I find that a lot of the older animated films don't quite hold up in the same kind of experience. With Pixar and Disney and South Park and Nickelodeon doing all kinds of wonderful new things with animation 3D and 2D, it's hard for old animation techniques not to show their strings, and that's a particularly unfortunate liability when you're dealing with storylines that involve futuristic high-tech toys and sci-fi predictions and forward-looking ideas.

So in general, while I can appreciate that Heavy Metal was a unique thing of its time, I think its historical context is almost completely responsible for the movie's importance, so there's little to love outside of that context. But on the merits of breaking cartoons out of that "for kids" box, I'll keep my rating at a respectful 3 stars.