Heavy Metal (1981) Review:

If there's any kind of filmmaking that is at a tie with live-action, it is hand drawn animation. It's a skill that requires a lot of patience and pain staking precision while animating every frame of the picture. It is no easy task. I like to categorize it in the same area as stop motion animation because that requires the same if not more amount of time and effort. What interests me even more in this kind of filmmaking is when an animated movie obtains a rating higher than a G or PG. I mean, how often does a viewer get to see a cartoon bleed or run its mouth without a censor. The world isn't always gumdrops and smiles.

The villainous glowing orb........boring

So when I came across this movie, I was thrown back for that exact reason.  It was totally new to me. I never had a chance to experience such an opportunity. Because of that, I went into watching this movie with optimistic hopes. They weren't high but I didn't expect garbage either. Instead, I came out feeling frustrated and rather annoyed. By no means is this movie bad. The visuals (which I will get to), are fantastic but the plot is just so irrelevant.

The story is about a girl who is harassed by a deadly godlike green orb that tells her random stories. The stories range from how others have seen it and used it. But honestly, who cares? If I were that girl listening to this orb's stories, I would begin to get tired of it continuing on and on and on and on and on! Enough! Just tell me what you want or if you're going to kill me, get it over with! It's like having a serial killer jump into your house and hold you hostage just so he can blab about his life story. That's torture enough.

That's really it because I didn't care for any of the stories at all except for the last one because it actually dealt with what I thought was going to be the main character. The rest was a mishmash of random stories. I also found it sexist too. Every woman in this movie ends up sleeping with some guy they don't know, either because they were saved by them or because they were wood into it. For any person who watches this, please remember that most women are not like this.

The majority of this film focuses on women.....

Back to what I did think worked though was the animation. For 1981, the animation is crisp and highly detailed. I was honestly expecting a budget in the range of He-Man cartoon animation. But it was very good. Everything from the backgrounds to the characters themselves had great colors and shadings. The voice cast behind it was also fun to listen too as well. I even enjoyed Elmer Bernstein's score. It had some really beautiful tunes within some scenes. As for the rock music, I can understand because of the era it was made and how popular it was at the time. And in some scenes, the rock music does work which surprised me. Overall it is a piece more for the nostalgia of the time and nothing else.

The animation is great for its time and its score actually has some beautiful tunes, even when it contains rock music. But don't count on it for a decent story. There is no plot and it doesn't have a main protagonist to root for.

Points Earned --> 3:10