Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Canadian adult animated film from 2000. That movie is "Heavy Metal 2000".
Now, for those of you who don't know, this movie is a sequel to a cult animated movie from the early 80's called "Heavy Metal". And I did watch it a long time ago back before I started doing this series. And...I thought it was OK. It was weird as hell, and I didn't really understand any of it, but I still sorta liked it. Mind you, again, it was a long time ago when I saw that movie, so my memory of it is a little hazy at best. What originally drew me to it was when I first saw that one "South Park" episode where Kenny was trying to get high off of cat piss and somehow ended in up in a different world with a different animation style, which was mostly inspired from "Heavy Metal". It was a weird episode, even for "South Park", but the episode was still pretty good overall.
Now since I did end up watching the first "Heavy Metal" movie, I sadly can't cover it for this series. As per rule for this series, I can't review movies I've seen before on my own time, unless there's some sort of exception to it all. But that's where things get interesting, because tonight's movie, like I said before, is a sequel to "Heavy Metal". And unlike the first one, where it's heralded as a cult classic, this one I haven't heard many positive things about. I'm not sure why, exactly, other than it's not as good as the first movie. Which doesn't really give me a whole lot of info to go on, but that makes things better for me because I like to go into a lot of these movies blind anyways.
So, I'm gonna see if this movie has any kind of redeeming qualities to it. I'm certainly hoping for it to be good, but I won't know for sure unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Heavy Metal 2000".
8 minutes later
You know, guys, when I heard from the beginning that anyone who touches the key will drive anyone insane...yeah, they meant it. Because Tyler has already killed most of his crew, leaving one to do the navigation duties. And considering he's voiced by Michael Ironside, you probably couldn't have asked for perfect casting, because he is nailing his role so far.
18 minutes later
Guys, I'm gonna comment on this later in the review, but so far, the music here...really hasn't been all that great. It's not completely awful or anything, but none of it has been all that memorable either. It's just kinda weak, really. I'm hoping maybe it'll get better within the next hour or so, but I'm not totally sure if it will.
4 minutes later
Well, guys, I just learned something new today. Sex robots, at least the one I'm seeing right now anyway, has bigger boobs and also has a vocabulary of over 200 dirty words. I'm not sure if that's something I needed to know, but at least it's something, I guess.
12 minutes later
I just saw two lizards humping each other. No, guys, I'm not joking about that, that it is a thing that *literally* happened. It's...different, I'll give it that much. But it's something that I definitely didn't need to see either. Just...what the fuck, man?
15 minutes later
OK, I have a question here, and I know it's a stupid one, but I want to ask it anyway. How does Tyler not recognize who F.A.K.K.2 is? I mean, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter to him, considering he's incredibly horny most of the time, but I'm still rather curious as to how he doesn't recognize her, considering she was the one who shot him "dead" way early on in the movie. Just something to consider is all.
4 minutes later
So this crazy doctor apparently has the robot aesthetics of the T-1000. Never would've guessed that, honestly.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Heavy Metal 2000". And we're closing out with an actual halfway decent song. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this song here doesn't sound too bad. Well, as much as I'd like to listen to more of it, I still have to review this thing. So I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK.
Before I get into the review, I need to give you guys a little bit of a history lesson in regards to the first "Heavy Metal" movie. And don't worry, this will be prevalent later on when I actually get to talking about its sequel. Now, as I stated at the beginning of this thing, "Heavy Metal" was a cult hit and was very successful, financially speaking. The thing is, despite it being a big hit, it was never really released on home video for the longest time. Now that's not to say that the movie was never shown again after it was released in theaters, it did mostly air throughout the 80's and early 90's on HBO. So if you were someone who grew up during that time, you probably had a better chance to watch it back then, as it was considered more of a special event. Mainly because it never did get a home release for a really long time.
Now, the main reason as to why it never got a home video release was mainly because of all the licensed music that was featured in that movie. And to give you guys some clarification, "Heavy Metal" was released in theaters in 1981. The official home release of this movie didn't come out until 1996, when Kevin Eastman, one of the co-creators of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", bought the rights to Heavy Metal magazine a few years prior and was actually able to release the movie with all of the music intact. And if you're not familiar with Heavy Metal's soundtrack, it is a *big* cast of music, mainly rock music, from artists like "Journey", "Black Sabbath" and Sammy Hagar, to list a few examples, it was an all-star soundtrack. And if you guys have never heard any of the songs from the first "Heavy Metal" film, go ahead and give them a listen to at some point. It's definitely worth your time, especially if you're a fan of classic rock music like I am.
So what exactly is this leading into, you might be wondering? Well, this is a good time to perfectly segue-way into this by talking about the biggest major flaw with this movie, which is the soundtrack. Because, one of the big things about the first "Heavy Metal" that a lot of people know about it is what I already mentioned, the soundtrack. The soundtrack for the first movie was really awesome. Even for someone like myself who had lukewarm thoughts about the first movie, I could at least say that it did have a great soundtrack to it. Most of the songs there were amazing, and it's one of the things that has aged really well about that movie. Including the animation, but that's besides the point. Point is, the movie had an amazing soundtrack.
This movie, however, doesn't really have anything resembling a memorable soundtrack. If anything, it's probably the most forgettable thing about this movie. I was hoping for it to get better the moment that I first mentioned the music not being all that great, but sadly, that's the not the case here. Mind you now, it does have a *lot* of songs from various artists, but none of them are memorable, aside from the ending credits song that I sorta listened to before shutting the movie off. In fact, looking up the soundtrack for this movie, I only recognized two artists in particular. One of them is Billy Idol, who also voices one of the characters in this movie. The other group is a somewhat infamous rap group known as the "Insane Clown Posse". Now, I haven't listened to a whole lot of their music, but from what little I did listen to from them, "mixed-bag" is probably the best way I can describe their music. That's *really* the best way I can summarize their music in a nutshell. How you interpret their music is up to you, of course. But yeah, even with those two names, they don't really do anything to help enhance this movie. Everyone else I honestly don't really recognize. Which if that's any indication, it just further proves that their music in this film is just so fucking forgettable that it almost hurts.
Now, I could go on and on about the music, but to give you guys the short version, the soundtrack is, by far, the weakest thing about this movie. Which is gonna be seen as a huge detriment, especially to fans of the first movie, who really adored the first movie's soundtrack. Now, another big change from the first movie to this one is how the writing is approached here. Now, before I go into more detail about this movie's writing, one of the other things that most people remember about the first "Heavy Metal" movie was that it was an anthology film. And if you're somehow not familiar with the term, an anthology film is basically where you take a bunch of shorter films that normally wouldn't reach the runtime of a feature length film, and you stitch them together to form an anthology movie of sorts. And that's what "Heavy Metal" was. It was a rock anthology that pretty much sold itself on it's own concept.
Which then leads me into this movie, because this movie ditches the anthology aspect and goes for a more traditional, straight-forward story. And to be honest, I'm perfectly OK with this because, again, I thought the first "Heavy Metal" movie was just OK at the time that I watched it. So I'm totally cool with this movie going for something a little more traditional with it's storytelling. And I'm gonna be honest with you guys when I say this, the writing in this movie is halfway decent. I can actually say that the story here, despite a couple of issues, is honestly sorta engaging. It's basically just a revenge story where our main character, Julie AKA F.A.K.K.2, is set out for revenge on our villain, Tyler, who ends up becoming a possessed, insane madman who wants the power of immortality. And Julie is out for revenge, not because of those reasons, but mainly because Tyler and his army destroyed most of her planet's people and kidnapped her sister. And she is joined by another character named Odin, who is the character that is voiced by Billy Idol that I mentioned a while ago.
And I guess this will also segue-way into the characters. Characters in this movie are mostly a mixed bag at best. There are 3 of them that are even worth mentioning. The first one is Julie. Julie is the one character here who has the most depth, as you know why she's out for revenge. I mean, she lost most of her family and friends, and with her sister being kidnapped, that's mostly enough for someone to set out for revenge. So, on that end, it works fine. And while her character is somewhat one-noted in terms of personality, she can also be sexy and badass at the same time, so it kinda balances itself out there. Odin is definitely the weakest character here, because he mostly ranges on being foil to comic relief. He was formerly a part of Tyler's army and got ditched by Tyler after Odin tried to help Julie's sister out of some rubble. But aside from that, he really doesn't have any redeeming qualities to him that makes him memorable.
Which then leads me into talking about the movie's main villain Tyler. Tyler, by himself, is admittedly somewhat of a bland villain as his only conquest is to become immortal after touching a crystal, which is also the key, that leads him into wanting to become immortal. And he's also incredibly horny, too. Which, for some people, might see this as a bit of a turn off, but I honestly think that kinda makes his character a little more charming to watch. But what helps it the most is the acting, which I'm gonna perfectly segue-way into, because if there's one thing that this movie does very well on is the acting. The best one, by far, has to go to Michael Ironside. The man is awesome at just about everything that he's in. No matter the role, he can make it into gold. And while his performance as Darkseid is gonna be the best voice acting role I've heard him from, his performance here in this movie is still really good. As is everyone else, of course. All of them really turned into amazing showings for their performances. So I can't really fault anybody here in terms of their voice work, as they all did an awesome job here.
Now onto the animation. And I'm gonna divide the animation into two bits, because while this movie is mostly hand drawn animation, it also does utilize CG, which I'll get to in a moment. As for the 2D style, the animation here is pretty good. Now, while it isn't as impressive-looking as how "Heavy Metal" looked with it's animation and art-style, what is here still works fine, as it tries it's best to be as weird and provocative as how the first "Heavy Metal" was. So essentially, you'll have a lot of shots where girls are nude, and they have their tits and ass showing. Which, again, I know might turn some people off, especially if you never saw "Heavy Metal" to begin with, as they also did the same thing there. But as with the art-style here, it's not too bad. It's not great, and while it doesn't completely replicate Heavy Metal's original art-style and animation, it's still decent enough on it's own standards, both in art-style and it's animation.
Now let's talk about the CG, and I am gonna say, for the standards of 2000's CG, it looks really solid for the most part. Now, of course, if I were to compare this to today's standards, I would say that it looks dated and really kinda shit. However, you would have to be a complete retard to compare the CG from the year 2000 to today's standards. Which I know may seem somewhat debatable nowadays to some people, but you get my meaning at least. So yeah, the CG for the ships and the layout mostly looks really solid...except for one thing. Now, I can't really go into too much detail on this one due to spoilers, however, I will say that the model for this and the way that it's rendered looks absolutely *horrible*! This is, by far, one of the ugliest-looking things I've ever seen rendered in CG. Which is saying a lot, considering I just talked about this sort of thing a couple of weeks ago in my review for "Recess: School's Out". And to be honest with you guys, the CG in that thing looks a hell of a lot better when compared to the one bit of CG that I witnessed in this movie. It looks like fucking shit! So much so that it would've looked terrible by 1990's standards rather than 2000's. It really is *that* bad. If you want to know what I'm talking about, well, go watch the movie for yourself if you're really that curious about it.
But aside from that one awful moment, the CG here is pretty solid, again, at least for 2000's standards. The sound-mix here is mixed fine, and I've already went into great detail about the film's soundtrack, so I'll just leave it as is.
Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Heavy Metal 2000"? It's a tough film for me to recommend. Because there's certainly a lot to like here for certain, but there are things that somewhat stops me from recommending it entirely. For starters, as a sequel to the first "Heavy Metal" film, soundtrack wise, it's definitely not as good as that film's music was. So don't really expect an awesome soundtrack from this movie if you plan on watching it. And also, if you have seen the first "Heavy Metal" movie and you loved it, chances are you're probably not gonna enjoy this movie, as it takes a completely different approach from it formerly being an anthology flick to a standard revenge story. That said, if you're somehow able to go into this movie and you're not comparing it to the first movie, you might possibly find some enjoyment here. I can't entirely assure that, but it is still possible. The writing here, even though it's completely different from the first "Heavy Metal" film, is still decent on it's own standards. And as for myself, well, I still enjoyed it, despite it's flaws. I don't know if it will be enough to watch on multiple viewings, but I might get another viewing out of this and see if it's worth holding onto or not. But until then, I think I'm gonna go watch something else. And seeing as how I've been talking about how this film took a departure from it being an anthology film, I think I'm gonna go watch an anthology film right now. I'm weighing my options between "Robot Carnival" and "Memories", so I'll pick one of those two and go watch them, because they're both really solid movies.
So anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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