Customer Reviews

Heavy Metal 2000 [Widescreen & Superbit]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I'll give you a measure of how forgettable this film was- I bought the new release of the original Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000 at the same time. I found myself remembering almost every scene in the original movie, even though I hadn't seen it in over 20 years. Then I watched HM2000. About halfway through I vaguely recalled that I had seen it before, but there wasn't one single scene that I clearly remembered- and I probably only saw it about three years ago. It was that forgettable, that ordinary.

Don't get me wrong; this isn't necessarily a bad film. The animation is very well done, very slick and seamless. The writing and voice acting is competent and professional. The sound track is certainly better incorporated into the animation and story than it was in the original. Everything was competently done, it was just.... ordinary. Nothing jumped out at you. It was like a Saturday morning cartoon episode- just with a little more violence, and a lot more animated nudity (animated nudity- I mean what's the point?)

Personally, I'd save my money and buy the new release of the original Heavy Metal. Sure, the animation looks crude by today's standards- but it was done the old, time-consuming, expensive way of drawing one cell at a time. The original was also crammed full of a variety of different animation styles and story lines. Perhaps that was because it was the first big budget science fiction animated feature and the people involved had so much enthusiasm that they tried to do too much. In contrast, I don't think anyone got too enthusiastic about this film. Sure, they did a solid job of craftsmanship, but where is the originality, the fire, the spirit? Kind of reminds me of the original heavy Metal magazine, it started out fresh and new and just slowly petered out to nothing....

The main problem with this film, at least in my opinion, is that it isn't a conglomeration of stories like the original was. Its all one story, one set of characters, one group of animators...and it therefore doesn't have the "epic" appeal the original did. It would have been nice, knowing so many American animators out there who wouldn't mind having such an innocent start in their career, to have had different stories done by different people. Why can't we have an American version of "Robot Carnival" or perhaps more recently "The Animatrix"?

That being said, lets talk about this movie. A miner working on a meteor discovers an evil glowing rock that turns him evil and makes him do evil things. He promptly dubs himself the evil "Lord Tyler" and takes over the ship making the crew do evil things.

OK, listen, who the hell decided to name him Lord Tyler? That is the dumbest, most unthreatening name in film history. It sounds like a 98 pound dweeb who's been going at Dungeons and Dragons too much.

"Gna! I am Lord Tyler! Fear me! Gnaaaaaa!"

Any way, Lord Tyler takes his evil crew and quickly attacks a peaceful, defenseless planet because he can. Sadly, he fails to kill Julie and her sister, the latter which he kidnaps obviously so he can do evil things to her. Julie picks up an annoying sidekick because every needs one, and together they go to a space station.

What follows is one of the worst animated action scenes in history. Julie stands and shoots her gun, the villains stand and shoot their gun...and every dies except either of them. Clearly the bullets are hurt that these two groups of people would want to kill each other, and must kill others to show them that violence is stupid. Or maybe the director just stinks at making action scenes.

Lord Tyler gets away casting "magic missile" and lands on a planet inhabited by lizard beings and six-eyed weenies. The six-eyed weenies hold the water of eternal life, but Lord Tyler is scared by six-eyed people so he just goes with the lizard people instead, hoping to let them do the fighting for him. Julie tries to seduce and slaughter him, but some how the rock care bear in the story runs in, pulls her out, and the movie continues another thirty minutes.

Then there's the climactic battle between the lizards and weenies. Julie and archnemesis Lord Tyler duke it out in a poorly choreographed fight before he's finally killed (actually, his mom tells him to stop playing "Everquest" and asks him to come up for dinner). The movie could end, but then one of the good guys turns out to be a CG monster and the movie continues another five minutes. Then it ends. Finally.

So what is this storyline? Well, like reviewers before me have said, its basically the last story in the original film but stretched out for another hour and a half. It could have been cool but...no it wasn't.

Watch the last segment of the original Heavy Metal called "Tarna" instead. The plot scheme of HM2K is lifted directly from that. They took a tight short story from one film and stretched it out needlessly here.

The details have changed, but it's still the same story.

The same major plot points exist: "Joe Nobody" encounters weird green object that turns him evil. Newly evil bad guy slaughters docile people without warning. Babe in high heel boots hunts him down for payback. Bouncy cleavage shots ensue.

Don't get me wrong, I dig the cleavage... but no one actually got down and dirty. Onscreen nudity without sex = BORING.

Several scenes were torn DIRECTLY from the original movie's "Tarna" segment. Why do angry babes bent on revenge always catch the bad guys drinking at some dive bar?

The one scene that brought home the lack of originality was when our heroine FAKK2 takes a dip in a pool and gets dressed in a leather bikini to do battle near the end. It was a shot-for-shot remake of Tarna taking a dip in a pool, then dressing in a leather bikini to do battle in the original movie. I do not exaggerate, they both put on their Victoria's Secret battle gear the SAME WAY. That would have been fine if this was a true sequel connected to the previous story.

But this is not the case.

HM2K is boring. The attempts at jokes all fall flat. You can get more bawdy humor from an episode of South Park on TV. The action scenes are clunky. The ... shots do nothing to stir the libido. There are many other faults, but the main problem is that someone thought this was a great idea and decided to waste their money to make it.

Well, you know where I stand. When I sit down for a couple hours to watch a movie I expect to be shown something thought-out, clever, and well-rendered into the film format. Actually nothing in this is worth watching. It's not science fiction, it's stupid fiction. The best thing about Heavy Metal 2000 is the over-the-top cover art on the DVD.

Here's the plot: guy finds green rock and becomes cartoonishly evil, kills a world where a buxom chick lives, chick teams up with an annoying sidekick, final showdown at a temple, some demon guy who we don't even know betrays the chick, the chick beats the bad guy and the demon 'plot twist' insertion.

Michael Ironside does the 1-dimensional evil guy for his paycheck, Julie Strain can't act period, and the rest are nobodys in nobody roles. Kevin Eastman should stick to doing the Ninja Turtles because it's more his level.

Heavy Metal (the original now), really tried to take animation to a new level. They tried new things and accomplished some very cool visuals.

Heavy Metal 2 on the other had seems to have taken the Hanna-Barbara playbook of [junky] animation (ala Scooby Doo and the gang) and spiced it up with some computer generated graphics here and there. All you need to do to get what I am talking about is to watch Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2 back to back. Compare the two pivotal fight scenes in each movie. Or see the differences between the scene in Heavy Metal when all the baddies converge on the city or when in Heavy Metal 2 the lizard army approaches their city to conquer.

In the first film, individuals appear to be doing different things. In the second installment, all the lizards bounce up and down in unison as they move along.

Oh... another thing. It has finally been proven that just because you have slept with the guy in charge, does not mean you can pull off an acting gig. Even one which will only involve your voice. Julie Strain(my patience) could not voice over her way out of a wet paper bag.

Finally, the original was a showcase for great music that integrated into the film almost seamlessly... it felt like it belonged there. No such luck with version 2 - the music feels like it was dropped in as an after thought.

In short, its a disappointment. I happen to work for the company that makes 3DSMax - software commonly used to create computer generated animations. I get to see lots of cool animations. I went in wanting to see the output of an effort to take on the conventional wisdom of animation - whether computer generated or not. I expected a story on the fringe and music that blows your socks off.

Well, I saw nothing new, mainstream story telling and my socks are still on.

Heavy Metal (the original now), really tried to take animation to a new level. They tried new things and accomplished some very cool visuals.

Heavy Metal 2 on the other had seems to have taken the Hanna-Barbara playbook of [junky] animation (ala Scooby Doo and the gang) and spiced it up with some computer generated graphics here and there. All you need to do to get what I am talking about is to watch Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2 back to back. Compare the two pivotal fight scenes in each movie. Or see the differences between the scene in Heavy Metal when all the baddies converge on the city or when in Heavy Metal 2 the lizard army approaches their city to conquer.

In the first film, individuals appear to be doing different things. In the second installment, all the lizards bounce up and down in unison as they move along.

Oh... another thing. It has finally been proven that just because you have slept with the guy in charge, does not mean you can pull off an acting gig. Even one which will only involve your voice. Julie Strain(my patience) could not voice over her way out of a wet paper bag.

Finally, the original was a showcase for great music that integrated into the film almost seamlessly... it felt like it belonged there. No such luck with version 2 - the music feels like it was dropped in as an after thought.

In short, its a disappointment. I happen to work for the company that makes 3DSMax - software commonly used to create computer generated animations. I get to see lots of cool animations. I went in wanting to see the output of an effort to take on the conventional wisdom of animation - whether computer generated or not. I expected a story on the fringe and music that blows your socks off.

Well, I saw nothing new, mainstream story telling and my socks are still on.

The first Heavy Metal was in my opinion a waste of time. They had six stories that were connected only by a strange green orb and other than that had nothing to do with each other besides sex and gore (which for some is a good thing). Heavy metal F.A.K.K. 2 (or HEavy MEatal 2000) however is in my opinion the better film. For one thing they focus on one story this time. The story is about a young women who is out for revenge after an insane captain attacks her planet so he can find the secret to immortality. He capturtes the people and kills those who defy him, or just some for the hell of it. SHe seeks out to stop him and eventually tehy battle on the planet where the secret is held.

BEcause of the further focus on story that means that the sex and gore had to be toned down some. Not to the extent that it would drive people away but just enough to tell a good story. However in the end it just doesn't live up. In the end it would be for fans only.

I remember that the original was a bunch of loosely connected stories. This one tells one tale, not too badly, but also too interested in including specific elements that had to be part of the movie's image more than letting the story flow. Of these "required" elements, it of course had to be science fiction, there had to be a lot of violence, plus completely gratuitous nudity featuring totally buff women with improbable breasts. I like that a lot of effort was made to tell a whole story, but it looks like a bunch of producers got together, figured out the lowest common denominator for their audience, and dished out standard movie fare for them, cafeteria-style. With the same resources, they could have taken the "Final Fantasy" route, at least plot-wise, but chose the easy road.

I love the firts Heavy Metal but the second, I don't know.
I see this 2 times and it's not a bad movie but it's not the first Heavy Metal....

The appeal of the original was that it was an animated version of the magazine. The appeal of the origial magazine was the mixture of styles, and the effortless "bad boy" attitude it exuded as a whole. As to the meandering plot? That was part of the appeal. If you didn't like one approach, there were at least three or more others that would turn you on! Heavy Metal 2000 misses the point entirely. It was flat, boring and felt like "Walt Disney Gets a Woody". I mean, it even had the same visual style of "Beauty and the Beast". The effortless adolescent raunch of #1 was replaced with the forced, "Aren't we bad? tee-hee!"
And get a load of the hero, a whiny genXer that the original Den would have snapped in two. He wasn't cool, he was a pain! The heroine just kept missing the mark. The whole thing was kid stuff!
Don't waste your money, rent the second one and buy the first one and prepare to leave your brain at home!