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Heavy Metal (Special Edition)

Heavy Metal (Special Edition)

List Price: $27.95
Your Price: $25.16
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not really accurate.
Review: Back in the '70s I had a subscription to Heavy Metal magazine. I basically agree with all the other "pans" of this video. [Heck], let me add one of my own. The episode about Hanover Fiste and Captain Stern is wrong. Captain Stern is really Sargeant Stern in the comic.

Completely omitted are the stories about Jerry Cornelious and the airtight garage. Michael Moorcock would not be pleased. Also I didn't see Major Grubert or the Tater 2000. Missing also was Barnabus the Archer and Lady Malvina.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: LITE METAL
Review: Horribly dated. Yes, it was cutting edge , back in 81. But. So was "The Breakfast Club". And this usurped the status quo merely because it served, or at least claimed to serve, something that was, again, at that time, legitimately subversive: a comic book for adults. Hardly an envelope-pusher in these days of Alan Moores and Grant Morrisons and Art Speigelmans and I could go on and on and on. Packed to the gills, this DVD has truckloads of extras to send shivers of glee running decathlons up and down the spines of the magazine's true-blue fans (me included). But. Little of what made the magazine reactor-hot makes it to the actual movie itself. The bad animation is particularly blasphemous seeing as how much of the magazine's stock hinged on its art. Few of the artists that spiked the magazine's punch are represented here. No Druillet, no Corben, no Caza, no Liberatore, no Bilal, not even the utterly amazing "The Bus". Instead, we get a "Bladerunner" rip-off ("Harry Canyon"), which does manage to make good use of Journey's irretrievably lame "Open Arms", making it sound almost cool. No mean feat, that. There's "Den" which takes Corben's hilariously satiric comic and turns it into little more than a "He-Man" episode with sex jokes. The one-joke horror sequence "B-17" features the tag team of Dan O Bannon and Mike Ploog and isn't bad , albeit predicatble. "So Beautiful and So Dangerous" ,though, is so good, it practically begs for a whole feature. And "Taarna" does achieve the breath-snatching poetry of a Moebius panel, which it slavishly appropriates but never credits for its elegant flying sequences. Good but hardly redemptive.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Animation that breaks the rules
Review: Heavy Metal is a collection of stories from the magazine of the same name. It contains the following stories:

Soft Landing: A short opening to movie involoving a corvette landing on Earth.

Locknar: This green orb tells a little girl stories of what he has seen over many years. This ofcourse connects all the stories.

Harry Canyon: The story of a guy who lives and New York as a cab driver who meets a strange girl and ends up protecting her...atleast till the end of the story.

Den: A story of a geeky kid who gets sucked into another world where he is a huge muscular guy who gets women. Very funny.

Captain Stern: A space commander who is in debt for causing major crimes and ends up being chased by Hanover Fist.

B-17: The Locknar attacks a B-17 and the crew ends up turning into zombies. Very scary for some.

So Beautiful So Dangerous: My favorite story about a robot who falls in love with a girl on a ship with two aliens who are easily on par with Cheech and Chong.

Tarrna: Tarrna links everything together with the death of the Locknar by a beautiful warrior.

The music in Heavy Metal is pure classic rock just the way I like it. This film is an animators dream. Without a doubt, Heavy Metal shows the full force of animation.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best adult cartoon ever.
Review: No, this is not a porno. But "Heavy Metal" is drawn and designed with the adult viewer in mind. Five high quality stories of blood, guts, greed and violence which, in addition, are often very funny. As a bonus, if you like "Heavy Metal" you will probably be in heaven as some favorite groups from the past can be found here. (I would argue, though, that "Devo" and "Trust" are not heavy metal groups, they still have some good music.)

Heavy Metal is a perfect gift for fans of the magazine with the same name, readers of Ron Howard and Conan the Barbarian fans. As for the DVD, its okay. It has some deleted sequences which I liked, but it is probably better that they cut them out of the original movie. I think it will make fans of the movie happy. I don't think they add much to other people.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A true cult classic
Review: If you are a fan of animation and anti-cultural atmopshere, then you will love Heavy Metal. Forget about the recently released Heavy Metal 2000 (...) and nab a copy of this well done DVD.

Sure it is from 1981, but like a fine wine, it just keeps on getting better with age. I have owned this DVD for over a year now and I am glad I made that decision. Heavy Metal succeeds for these reasons:

1. Top Rate Voice Overs: Second City Alumni John Candy, Harold Ramis, and Joe Joe Flaherty.

2. Unmatched Music: Ever hear of Cheap Trick, Devo, Black Sabbath, and Blue Oyster Cult? If you are a fan of either of those bands or their style, you will agree that the musical ambience rocks.

3. Out of this world scenes: Ranging from a deadbeat cab driver to a kid who wants to get laid to a world saving heroine, Heavy Metal paved the way for many animation artists and it shows.

So in the end, if you want an out of this world movie that has nudity and swearing (not the main reasons to get it) then do yourself a favor and experience Heavy Metal today!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A precursor!
Review: This movie is based on the arts and stories of famous French SF magazine Metal Hurlant, known in the english speaking world as Heavy Metal. The movie is remarkable in many ways. Made before the egemony of computer assisted animations, it features a lot of effects (camera motions, 3D) we wouldn't expect from such an old production and an unmistakable human touch lost in more recent animation movies. Heavy Metal is very evocative of what was to become mainstream science fiction in the 80's: Star Wars, Blade Runner and the less knows works of Bilal and Moebius.

Although there is a symbolic (thin) storyline, the movie is best describes as a sketches movie or a collection of shorts.

I estimate that most serious science fiction amateurs (the D&D-videogames-Star Treck breed) and animation lovers will apreciate this movie. There is some nice girls, too -sacrés Français!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: HEAVY METAL 1981
Review: Heavy Metal is a cool movie to watch even if your not a fan of the magazine. The animation is mediorcre at best but an excellent storyline makes up for this. The soundtrack is incredible with such names as Cheap Trick, Donald Fagan, and Stevie Nicks- this blends well with the segments. Nothing like Heavy Metal 2000- AND THIS IS A GOOD THING!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Uneven but mindlessly entertaining
Review: If "Heavy Metal" were released under any other name and with any other pedigree, people wouldn't cross the street to spit on it if it were on fire. In the abstract, this movie is an overrated, name-brand mess: a disjointed, damn-near-incoherent mess of vignettes sewn loosely together with a wraparound that's barely even there to begin with. It's like a two-hour animated version of "Amazing Stories", except that most of the stories are about a) sex, b) drugs, c) violence, or d) all three.

That's the abstract. As a movie, it's a lot of fun, for no other reason than as a mindless diversion with a lot of interesting music and some very funny moments. The stories are a jumbled lot -- the tale about the cabdriver was of course the direct inspiration for "The Fifth Element", so much so ...; the hilarious "Hanover Fiste" is good enough to support a feature-length production on its own; the "Taarna" segment, same deal, although most people watched it for Taarna's, um, attributes rather than her personality. Not that anyone in this movie has much of a personality; they're mostly props for a very weird stream-of-consciousness style. Everything has the same look-and-feel of the mag that spawned the flick -- the women have giant chests, the men too many muscles, and everything has way too many knobs and buttons. Teenagers will eat it up.

As remastered on DVD, it looks and sounds fantastic. Truth be told, while I can see why this movie deserved the DVD format -- and no movie deserved to remain in rights limbo as long as this one did -- it's hard to see why it's considered to be so important except for the fact that it has the name, and was probably in the right place at the right time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 'Toons with 'Tude
Review: I've always had a morbid fascination with animation that transcends the 'Saturday morning' kidvid tripe. When 'Beavis and Butt-Head', 'South Park', and the HBO 'Spawn' series hit the scene, I had the time of my life watching an art form that broke away from the innocence of 'Looney Tunes' and Disney. Finally! 'Toons with some brass spheres! And maybe even a message somewhere- not that I care about such things...

My fascination with grown-up animation eventually led me through the crowded ranks of Japanese anime, where I eventually got somewhat burned out watching characters with those big ol' eyes and those tiny noses that seem to almost disappear when they face you. That, and those speed lines were starting to make me dizzy. It was only a matter of time before I turned to that hallmark in western adult 'toonage, 'Heavy Metal'. My first partial viewing was at a bootleg video dealer's table at a local sci-fi con years ago. I found myself transfixed, but decided to hold off on buying a bootleg copy of it. I eventually bought the DVD release, and was amazed by the remastering and restoration of the film, both in sound and picture quality. One thing I really liked about the flick was it's use of different types of animation for each story in the anthology. In this instance, I found variety to be a good thing.

The special features were pretty good too, with a 'making of' featurette that discusses the adult comic magazine that the movie was inspired by, as well as the film itself. It's a comic-book geek's fantasy come true! There's also a magazine cover gallery, art & cel portfolios, rough sketches, and even a rough-cut version of the film with commentary by 'Robotech' creator Carl Macek. Sadly, I found Macek's monologue to be rather unexciting-he seems somewhat disinterested about the whole thing. So much for being entertained here...

'Late

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Truly Amazing
Review: Went to a video store, saw heavy metal and thought it could be a good movie. Let me tell you something, this movie is so amazing and truly amazing. The movie starts off with a great intro of a guy driving a corvete in space towards earth. The movie just inspired me with the music and the animations. Heavy Metal Truly kicks A$$. I bought this video of amazon right away and now got my own copy. Nobody should miss this movie. Great for Late Night Party Movie.


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