You have to conclude that its makers should have got out more.
Heavy Metal (1981)
Tomatometer
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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.
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
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... 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]
Starring: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Richard Romanus, Harold Ramis
Starring: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Richard Romanus, Harold Ramis, John Vernon, Rodger Bumpass, Thor Bishopric, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, DEVO, Sammy Hagar, Stevie Nicks, Blue Oyster Cult
Director: Gerald Potterton
Director: Gerald Potterton
Producer: Ivan Reitman
Screenwriter: Len Blum, Daniel Goldberg
Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Story: Dan O'Bannon
Reviews for Heavy Metal
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.
A genuinely outrageous and occasionally brilliant coupling of American animation and classic early-Eighties heavy metal.
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.
...visually stunning some of the time and stunningly juvenile the rest.
Wild animation, tons of blaring rock music, and fanboy wish fulfillment fantasies of the freakiest order. Good campy fun.
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
...An unabashed crowd-pleaser. Whenever possible, it goes for the fight scene, the sex joke, the jiggly breasts...
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.
Regardless of its dated stylishness (which still holds up remarkably well a decade plus later), Heavy Metal was a pioneering film in 1981 and remains a pivitol and infuential body of art today.
Anyone from the era will love it, while everyone else simply won't get it at all.
Heavy Metal has been animated with great verve, and scored very well, with music much less ear-splitting than the title would suggest.
Heavy Metal despite all of its flaws and anacrhonisms, nevertheless represents something of a refreshment in today's sterile climate.
Latest News for Heavy Metal
June 08, 2009:
Cameron, Verbinski, Snyder to Direct Heavy Metal ![]()
Despite some studio setbacks, Kevin Eastman's "Heavy Metal" redux is rolling ahead -- and with some suitably weighty names attached, too. More...
April 09, 2009:
Rob Zombie Approached for Heavy Metal ![]()
Nothing's been signed yet, but according to producer Andy Gould, Rob Zombie has been approached by David Fincher and Kevin Eastman about directing a segment of their "Heavy... More...
September 05, 2008:
Fincher's Heavy Metal Lines Up Directors ![]()
Now that David Fincher's "Heavy Metal" is back on track at Sony, directors are once more lining up to helm portions of the anthology -- including Zack Snyder, Guillermo del... More...
July 10, 2008:
Fincher's Heavy Metal Seeks New Home ![]()
Just weeks after it was announced, David Fincher's Heavy Metal has been dropped by Paramount due to studio nervousness about the film being "too risque for mainstream audiences." More...
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