Heavy Metal 2000 (Superbit Collection)

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as its predecessor, but few sequels are.
Review: For all you die-hard fans of the original "Heavy Metal" film, as I am, this movie should not be over looked. No it's not as good as the first one, but few sequels ever are as good as their predecessors.

The things that I liked better about the first "Heavy Metal" than this one are as follows:

#1 The first one was an anthology movie. Normally, I don't like anthology films, but for some reason it worked in "Heavy Metal". "Heavy Metal 2000" is not an anthology. For me, this made "HM 2K" seem a bit slow moving, but certainly not dull.

#2 The animation in the first one looked very comic bookish, which I feel only adds to the film's nostalgia and makes it more interesting to look at. In "HM 2K", the animation is very stylized, making it look like an adult version of "Titan AE". Again, I don't think this ruins the film, just makes it appear almost too classy to be a "Heavy Metal" film, therefore losing some of the "get down and dirty" underground animation feel that the original had.

#3 There are many styles of Rock today. Personally, I'm more a fan of Classic Rock, Hard Rock & '80s Metal, which are the styles that made up the original film's soundtrack (a very good soundtrack I might add, certainly worth buying). However, the soundtrack for "HM 2K" is made up almost entirely of Modern Metal, or Industrial/Goth Rock bands such as Coal Chamber, MDFMK & Monster Magnet. Not that I don't like those bands or the sound of the music they play, I just prefer the sound of the older stuff, which is sadly vanishing from the music market today. Today's "rock" bands, in my opinion, are actually (with a few exceptions) nothing more than weak little "alternative pop" bands that like to pose as actual rock bands (Foo Fighters, Lit, Eve Six, etc.)

Anyway, that's my little spiel about "Heavy Metal 2000". Again, I'd say that if you're a fan of the original, you should definitely see this one even if it's not quite as good as the first. Even, if you've never seen the first "Heavy Metal", or just didn't like it that much, you might still find this one enjoyable.

At any rate, give "HM 2K" a chance, and see what you think.

Rating:
Summary: Good job of craftsmanship- and totally forgettable
Review: 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....

Rating:
Summary: Poor sequal
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Saturday morning cartoon at best
Review: Oh, boy, were we disappointed! We've waited for several years for this episode. And for our patience what is our reward? Junk. The story is childish. The art is boring after the first 10 minutes. The soundtrack detracts (if that's possible). I have been an enthusiastic and loyal fan/subscriber/collector of Heavy Metal magazine since 1977 and to be honest, I can't imagine this horrible movie coming from the same shop. T&A are the only redeeming bits that keep this space clunker from losing all it's stars. If you want to experience some of HM's finest work, rent the original HM movie on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie with very respectable production quality
Review: The first installment of Heavy Metal was far superior to this movie, but Heavy Metal 2000 is a very respectable effort. True, the storyline is similar (there's even a part that is a direct copy of the Taarna battle suit dressing sequence) to past plotlines in movies of this genre of films, but the story and action is enough to keep and hold your interest.

The video graphics in this movie are incredible, a seamless blend of cgi and traditional animation. The sound quality is excellent. I am not a heavy metal music fan of any sort, but the music in this movie is great.

If you're the type that likes women whose bodies defy gravity, this movie has it, the women are incredible. There is nudity spread thoroughout, but the sex is not graphic in nature. This film is extremely a parental discretion advised, I strongly recommend it for the 18+ crowd. The violence on the other hand is very graphic, even more so than the first Heavy Metal movie.

I've read the other reviews so I'll not repeat the plotline for this movie. I recommend this movie to those who enjoy a "different" kind of movie. This is an adult animated comic book well worth viewing if you enjoy the Heavy Metal magazine offerings.

I have the DVD version and highly recommend this movie (or any movie for that matter) in this format for the extras as well as the superb video and audio quality.

Rating:
Summary: A vain attempt.
Review: Like my title suggests this movie is a vain attempt to take credit from the first movie to sell sub-par music to a new generation of viewers. The first Heavy Metal obviously had some thought put into the scenes and the pace of the story line. The artistry was phenomanal in the first movie, much better than the mish mosh of computer graphics and hand drawn animation in Heavy Metal 2000. The first movie made sure the music reinforced and enhanced whatever scene was being played, the second, well the music really did not add much if anything at all the movie. To sum up...boring plot, no imagination, and a sound track to not die for. My advice? Use the DVD as a coaster and read a good Frank Herbert novel instead.

Rating:
Summary: We've already seen this movie...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: This is terrible: bad writing, bad acting, dumb jokes...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: This Movie Reeked!
Review: I really tried to like this movie since the first Heavy Metal was favorite in my household along with a more obscure Rock & Rule movie which really no one has seen but me and other weird people. Anyway, the plot is almost non-existent like in the Fast and the Furious but I can at least I can that movie without feeling nausated not so for Heavy Metal: FAKK2... Julie Strain looks great as animated "shero" unfortunately she doesn't get naked but only once and that's when she first tries to kill Ironside's voiced antagonists. I've forgotten the character's name because he made that much of an impression on me. Infact I've forgotten all of the character's names and all I can recall is the bloody fight scene towards the end as the bad guy was about to enter this temple and get some water so that he could live forever or some such nonsense and they were using swords and bows and arrows. Yeah, this takes place in the future...okay what's with the swords? Oh and the monk turning out to be the REAL bad guy at the end...Gee I wasn't expecting that.
The first Heavy Metal was more of the rock opera and certainly enough adult situtions to keep even the lowest male life form interested but this sequeal to the classic seems like a rush job like getting a small Healthy Choice Meal after a long day of playing flag football when you were expecting maybe a Swanson's Hungry Man. Don't even this stinker. Though I must admit the little rock dude was cool.

Rating:
Summary: Jinkies!! Its Heavy Metal 2000!
Review: 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.