Review of Heavy Metal (1981) by Hindénbörg E — 30 Nov 2007
Just watched this for the first time in about a decade a few nights ago. The experience was nostalgic, but mostly a let down.
Most of the movie is boring and not really as interesting as most of the early stories in the magazines, or drawn all that well for that matter.
However...
Harry Canyon and the "coke" aliens segment (I forget the name-- But John Candy and Harold Ramis did the voices for it) were well worth watching alone.
But it is stories like "Captain Sternn & Hanover" and the eerily bizarre "B-17" that make this movie remind me of why I fell in love with it to begin with. "Stern" contains almost none of the graphic violence and sex that the magazine was famous for, yet it ultimately becomes one of my favorite (and the funniest) story of the entire film. Clearly Matt Groening was thinking of Stern when he created Zap Brannigan on Futurama.
"B-17" might be one of the shortest segments in the movie, but it's also probably the best. It too has no sex, but plenty of violence and splatter to satisfy me. In fact "B-17" probabably could have very well carried a full length film all of its own (it basically is the same thing as O'Bannon's "Alien" anyways).
Still, even though this movie isn't COMPLETELY successful to me it is different, and I wish they could have created more of these movies in the 80's (God knows that they had plenty of source material).
This review of Heavy Metal (1981) was written by Hindénbörg E on 30 Nov 2007.
Heavy Metal has generally received positive reviews.
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