Heavy Metal 2000

Heavy Metal 2000_360P

source: Heavy Metal 2000

Alright...i was expecting something great, heavy metal, bad-ass action with crazy gorgeous women fighting big bad dudes in a sci-fi setting. Forget about the bad-ass action and welcome to crappy animation ! This sounds and looks like a bad GI Joe TV episode. I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking but i've rarely seen animation so poorly done, the movements are ridiculous and the 2D drawing part is badly integrated with the 3D scenery. It's even bad to the point that when you get a scene with only 3D stuff, it actually looks much better...and right away i thought the 3D was pretty bad. I don't even want to talk about the dubbing..."big names" don't necessarily mean they can actually dub and this movie proves it. Well that pretty much sums it up, it's animated like it came out of a kindergarten and the story isn't much better. The audio track is also lacking, which is sad for a "heavy metal" movie, it never feels like it's adequate to the "action" on the screen and overall also feels cheap. Don't watch it, you'll just waste your time.

Heed my advice on this film - watch the opening credits, then INSTANTLY STOP THE MOVIE. Pretend that you watched a superbly animated, engrossing film with and excellent hard yet fitting soundtrack. Sadly, too many have already and too many to come will not heed these sage words. What remains, for those who have suffered through this movie, is poor animation, plot and dialogue concocted by a first-grader (no offense to first graders), and not much else. This movie insults anime. This movie insults action films. This movie insults animation. This movie insults heavy metal the music genre. This movie is so bad that it insults, well, everyone who watches it. If you have not, count your blessings.

After all the surrounding hype that built this one up, I was really, really let down. While the original was uneven in parts due to its anthology nature, it at least had great animation and an excellent soundtrack to hold it up. "Heavy Metal 2000" had a predictable, weak, suspense-free story, and the combo animation didn't mesh together very well. Heck, the traditional cel animation wasn't done very well, either; the shadowing was off and proportions weren't properly held when a character was turning. The colors were as dull and flat as the personalities of the characters. And why is it the female non-humanoid aliens look like somebody just drew an alien head on a humanoid female body?

After the disappointing let down that was the original Heavy Metal film, i stumbled upon this sequel. Hell of a lot better than the first Heavy Metal movie, which was an inconsistent mess of a show. However, its awesome animation was thrown together with a less than intriguing storyline, making the overall product a huge waste. First of all, the title did not make any sense. Why call it "Heavy Metal"??? The only thing "Heavy Metal" about it was the few metal rock songs that played at certain parts of the movie. Whats more, the heavy metal songs never fit in with the scenes that they accompanied; coming across like they were thrown into those scenes as an afterthought. Moving swiftly along to the story......Never in my life have i seen a Story so simple, bland and full of clichés, that tries to pass itself off as complex and compelling. Standard good vs Evil story coupled with a outer space chase/revenge story. A miner named Tyler gets "possessed" by some ancient shard of evil and goes on a quest for immortality after hijacking a ship. On his way to a planet which has a legendary fountain of immortality, stops by a planet who's inhabitants carry some immortality "essence" in their bodies. Tyler and gang massacres the whole colony and takes prisoners, leaving the main character, Julie, behind. Julie vows to avenge her family and kill Tyler before he reaches the fountain of immortality Straight forward and with little twists. Even a 10 year old can understand it. Which brings me to my next point, in that a 10 year old should not be allowed to watch it. It is definitely a film for adults with its numerous cursing, bloody violence and nudity. Thats something i've rarely seen in animation; and its taken to new heights in Heavy Metal 2000 without feeling excessive. All the characters are written with little depth or dimension. The stellar acting, however, redeems the otherwise uninteresting characters. Tyler(expertly played by Hollywood actor Michael Ironside)is among my favorite animated villains of all time. His voice is spot on and Ironside delivers his every line with such menacing enthusiasm that he actually sounds like he enjoyed his role a lot. If one can just ignore the less than interesting storyline and one dimensional characters, this movie as some of the most breathtaking animation ever seen in a long while. It is on par with big budget productions like Titan A.E and Steamboy. THe frame rate is exceedingly high leading to exceptionally smooth, lifelike movements. The CGI blends well with the 2D animation for the most part. What really blew me away was the level of detail in both the CGI and the 2D art. THe 2D art actually had blended shadows! A huge rarity in animation. Basically, for most animation, shadows are just a flat darker shade. In this case, shadows increase in darkness intensity as it goes further from the light source, just like in live action. I give 10/10 for animation but 4/10 for story. Round it up to a even 7/10 in total. Honestly, such revolutionary animation, an entertaining script, flawless acting, and intense bloody action was utterly wasted on the watered down excuse of a story.

Another review here mentioned the likelihood that this was a Julie Strain Ego stroke. I kind of have to agree. I find her a terrible,not-worth-the celluloid actress, although as a cartoon she is better than in real life. The storyline was really weak. So weak in fact one has to wonder if they wrote the entire script on a paper cocktail napkin while out drinking one night. True, the first Heavy Metal's storyline was a little disjointed, but it had multiple contributors and was the first of it's kind. And as the first it was good... and FUN. This one was not fun. There was no ironic/dark comedy moments. You knew where the story was going from moment one. Total formula I could not get involved with these characters either. The writing just never made me care. Lastly there was no sense of adventure. It was just very, repeat VERY, mediocre. Leave it on the shelf at the video store.

I like the HEAVY METAL fusion of animation, sex, violence and rock music. The first movie had its memorable moments even though it was very uneven. But HEAVY METAL 2000 is simply too juvenile for my taste. The film really feels like it was made by 12 year olds. In fact, had the film been produced by actual 12 year old boys, I'm sure it would have been just as juvenile but more honest in its approach. As is now, the film feels too restrained. It's as if the producers were willing to go all the way but had to make a couple of changes here and there before the film was going to be release. The end product is watchable (barely) but the grasp of every movie making technique is stunningly retarded. The voices are terrible. The female heroine is really stiff and she looks like a 40 year old mom. The sexuality is truly infantile. I'm sure if HV 2000 had been made by 12 year olds, we would have seen more lesbo action. The music was angry and hard and yet anonymous sounding. And some scenes looked really bad, like when they go through the "warp" hole and when the female parks her ship on the other bigger ship. Some scenes during this moment were mystifyingly bad. It looked like the movie just stopped and they started to show someone playing an arcade game. As bad as HEAVY METAL 2000 is, it's not bad enough to have killed the HEAVY METAL series, imo. I still think that if they got a great team behind a third movie, the whole idea would still rock.

I found this film on Sale at a music store. Months earlier I had bought the original from another music store and I found it to be pretty good! This new version I will say right off the bat, is not as good as the original. However this film has some awesome effects, great characters, and a not too bad story. This movie follows on one large story unlike the original which was a bunch of short ones put together. What I like about this was the whole atmosphere and feeling of an old, early 80's sci-fi film and I like that. Of course the music is no where NEAR as good as the original! But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. This film had less nudity but it still contained a nice bit of it. And it is quite obvious the part where she is swimming and than dresses up was taken right from the old film which was pretty cool. I suggest you be a little open minded and go take a look at this movie. I am telling you right away it is not as good as the classic original, but is worth a see and is no where near as bad as I've heard. All in all 7.5/10.