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MOVIES / ON DVD / HEAVY METAL
Heavy Metal

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Heavy Metal (1981)

61%
33%
76%
N/A
N/A
N/A
61 %
Reviews Counted: 23 Fresh: 14  Rotten:9 Average Rating: 5.7/10
 
Consensus: It's sexist, juvenile, and dated, but Heavy Metal makes up for its flaws with eye-popping animation and a classic, smartly used soundtrack.
 

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins

Synopsis: This unique collection of six animated stories combines science fiction with fantasy, horror, comedy, sex and rock music. The segments include "Harry Canyon" and "Den." In the first, a New York City cab driver gets mixed up with a beautiful femme fatale. Although he's become so hardened... This unique collection of six animated stories combines science fiction with fantasy, horror, comedy, sex and rock music. The segments include "Harry Canyon" and "Den." In the first, a New York City cab driver gets mixed up with a beautiful femme fatale. Although he's become so hardened that he keeps a death ray in his car to kill troublesome riders, he lets his guard down long enough to fall for his latest passenger... and it could cost him his life. In "Den," a nerdy student travels to another planet and transforms into a macho stud with incredible strength. While fighting villains, beautiful women throw themselves at him. Other stories in this anthology feature the exploits of a beautiful female warrior, pilots fighting off a creature from another world, and a Pentagon secretary who gets captured by an alien. There's also one off-the-wall segment played purely for comic effect. The stories are all linked by sequences featuring a fiendish green meteorite that claims to be the cause of evil throughout the world. [More]

Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy

Starring: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Richard Romanus, Harold Ramis, John Vernon

Director: Gerald Potterton
Producer: Ivan Reitman
Screenwriter: Len Blum, Daniel Goldberg
Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Story: Dan O'Bannon

DVD Info

Release:

Jan 10, 2007

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Note: This release is in the UMD format for Sony PSP players only.
  • Anamorphic - 1.85

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 2.0 - English, French, Spanish, German, Italian
  • Subtitles - English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Italian, Arabic, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindu, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Thai - Optional

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
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Ratings Image
N/A

You have to conclude that its makers should have got out more.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/10/08
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
N/A

Fantasies that are gratuitously sexist and Fascist (macho whoring and warmongering), and whose roots reach all the way back to post-hippie paranoia, feed the tangled plot-lines of a movie that... should disappoint even the teenage wet-dreamers.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/09/06
Derek Adams
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
5/5

...An unabashed crowd-pleaser. Whenever possible, it goes for the fight scene, the sex joke, the jiggly breasts...

Full Review | comment Comment
09/17/07
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com
Ratings Image
2/4

It's a mixed bag, but successful in a mindless, adolescent way.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/16/07
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
N/A

Some of the animation is first-rate, particularly in the more modest comedy segments, and even the heavy set pieces have greater flash and dazzle than anything Ralph Bakshi mustered around the same period.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/16/07
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Ratings Image
2/5

No review available.

comment Comment
10/26/05
Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope
Ratings Image
3.5/5

Anyone from the era will love it, while everyone else simply won't get it at all.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/25/05
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com
Ratings Image
3/5

No review available.

comment Comment
07/15/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
Ratings Image
3.5/5

Heavy Metal has been animated with great verve, and scored very well, with music much less ear-splitting than the title would suggest.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/30/04
Janet Maslin
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
3/5

No review available.

comment Comment
02/20/04
Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Ratings Image
2/5

No review available.

comment Comment
01/12/04
Bill Chambers
Film Freak Central
Ratings Image
3/5

No review available.

comment Comment
07/18/03
Jon Niccum
Lawrence Journal-World
Ratings Image
6/10

Heavy Metal despite all of its flaws and anacrhonisms, nevertheless represents something of a refreshment in today's sterile climate.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/14/03
Dragan Antulov
rec.arts.movies.reviews
Ratings Image
3/5

A bit of a mixed bag. Some eye popping animation, chock full of nudity, gore, and alien landscapes. The classic soundtrack is what makes it most worthwhile when the stories fall flat

comment Comment
03/21/03
Brian Mckay
eFilmCritic.com
Ratings Image
4/5

No review available.

comment Comment
03/11/03
Joshua Tanzer
Offoffoff
Ratings Image
3.5/5

Wild animation, tons of blaring rock music, and fanboy wish fulfillment fantasies of the freakiest order. Good campy fun.

comment Comment
07/26/02
Scott Weinberg
eFilmCritic.com
Ratings Image
6/10

...visually stunning some of the time and stunningly juvenile the rest.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/08/01
John J. Puccio
DVDTown.com
Ratings Image
N/A

A wildly sophomoric and stupid cartoon celebrating gore, rape and bad music.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/01/00
Barry Walters
San Francisco Examiner
Ratings Image
N/A

Asked if I wanted to see it again, I figured, why not? I would have remembered if it was really bad. But memory does play tricks.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Bruce Reid
Film.com
Ratings Image
1.5/4

This is simply exploitation on a very juvenile level.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/01/00
Chris Hicks
Deseret News, Salt Lake City
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
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• Heavy Metal at IGN
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