Heavy Metal
March 12, 2003
- Dan Ramer,
DVDFile.com
Long before the impossibly voluptuous Jessica Rabbit, long before
Spawn on HBO - Todd McFarlane's "animation with balls" -
there was the libidinous sci-fi of Heavy Metal. Sex, drugs, and Rock
and Roll. Based on the lewd, rude, and nude illustrated magazine of
the same name (which itself was based on a French periodical),
producer Ivan Reitman brings a vision to the screen of every male
adolescent's wish fulfillment. (Which makes me somewhat qualified to
review this film, since despite my long having moved on to a more
stodgy age, I'm still an adolescent at heart.) The film is populated
with beautiful women who were blessed with hourglass figures and huge
breasts punctuated with perpetually erect and prominent nipples. They
are nubile, frequently nude, and consistently in heat. The film is
essentially a series of vignettes that are loosely held together by a
plot device called the Loc Nar, a glowing green sphere that harbors
unspeakable evil. For reasons that slowly emerge as the film
progresses, the Loc Nar has chosen to reveal itself and its powers to
a young girl isolated in a farmhouse surrounded by fields of grain.
The first act is called "Harry Canyon." We're
immersed in a film-noir New York of the not too distant future. The
hero of the piece is a hard-boiled cabby who's seduced - literally -
into helping a woman threatened by a gangster who wants to buy the Loc
Nar. Her father had found the artifact during an archeological dig.
This is one of two original works for the film, and it may be the
best.
The second story epitomizes the quintessential
adolescent male fantasy. A teenage boy named Dan, slightly built and
with thick glasses - clearly not a success in sports or with the girls
- has retreated into science as a hobby. He's mysteriously transported
and transformed during a lightening storm, awakening on a strange
planet to find himself tall, muscular, and hung. He's now known as
Den. He's quickly drawn into a conflict, rescues a woman (beautiful
and naked, of course) who is about to be sacrificed by an evil queen.
Before the rescued damsel can fully repay him with her ample body,
they're captured by the queen's rival. Through a series of adventures,
Den gets to bed the equally beautiful queen and fights to save the day
and the damsel.
The third sequence, "Captain
Sternn," is the lightest. A superman look-alike, Sternn is a
smooth sociopath on trial for his many crimes. He thinks he's bribed
his way to freedom, but he's in for a bit of a surprise. The fourth
story most resembles the style of an early comic book called The
Crypt. Dark and gory. The fifth sequence is a satirical piece called
"So Beautiful and So Dangerous." Aliens kidnap yet another
beautiful and overripe woman who soon finds sex most satisfying with a
robot. The aliens are more interested in a little nose candy, and
enjoy a wild ride to their deep space home. Along the way they
encounter much space junk and debris, including a familiar hulk with
the marking NCC-170-1 (the unsubtle change was probably made to avoid
a copyright conflict with Paramount). And this bit of fluff segues
into a sequence that returns power to women; it is called
"Taarna." The heroine is once again lovely and impressively
built, but rather than a willing sexual object, she is Clint
Eastwood's mute avenger. An enlightened and peaceful society has been
decimated by an army of evil created by the Loc Nar. It is her sacred
duty to protect that society; failing that she must avenge them. Saved
for the end of the film, it is her story that restores our opinion of
the filmmakers' portrayal of women. And it's her story that links the
Loc Nar plot device to the loose narrative.
This is a
youthful, tongue-deeply-buried-in-cheek work that amuses and
entertains. The uptight need not apply. This is for the many fans
who've elevated the film to cult status and for adults who wish to
fondly revisit their immature fantasies. The animation is excellent,
but clearly inconsistent. The production was parceled out to many
small animation houses and there are visible differences in style,
even within a given sequence. Various techniques were used to create
Heavy Metal, including rotoscoping over film and deep-field, multi-
layer animation. The animation holds up remarkably well. Heavy Metal
had been bogged down in rights disputes over the rock music featured
on the soundtrack. It took fifteen years for the film to be released
to video, four more before it found its way to a great DVD in November
of '99, and a tad over forty months more to be reissued in Superbit
form.
Video: How Does The Disc Look? The film's
1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio is presented in anamorphic video. The
video in the original release was outstanding; the video in this
Superbit release is even better. The minimal edge haloing found in the
earlier disc essentially has been eliminated. Small object detail has
been improved; a magnified screencap of a newspaper close-up at 7:39
demonstrates better-defined non-letters. Very natural film grain is
readily apparent. The colors are richly painted to the screen and are
well saturated. The video is absolutely noise-free. There are no
visible digital artifacts. There are deep rich blacks and the video's
dynamic range, contrast, and brightness are just right. There are no
visible compression artifacts like blocking and mosquito noise. This
is a wonderful looking DVD, another great example of the potential of
the Superbit concept. Audio: How Does The Disc
Sound? The soundtrack had been remastered in fully discrete
Dolby Digital 5.1 for the first release, and the audio is surprisingly
good considering that it's over twenty years old. There is some modest
distortion and compression, and the top octave is somewhat suppressed.
The bass extension is solid, but the bottom most octave is missing.
Elmer Bernstein's undiscovered score is well presented across a
reasonable sound stage. The rock source elements are clear, but it's
hard to assess fidelity for mixes that have so many intentional
distortions. (I would have liked to hear a bit more of Bernstein's
music.) The dialog is never compromised by either the sound effects or
the music and is always quite clear (understandable, since animation's
voices are always recorded in the studio). There are occasional
surround sounds to involve the audience in the action, usually pans of
moving objects. A second 5.1 track in DTS is also included. The age of
the original audio elements do not mask the subtle superiority of the
DTS mix on this disc. After careful gain matching, the DTS track
seemed richer and demonstrated a more convincing timbre.
Subtitles are available in Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and English, for
which Closed Captions are also offered.
Supplements:
What Goodies Are There? As with other Superbit discs, the bit
budget is dedicated to the presentation, and no extras have been
included. This film was a superb candidate for a Superbit Deluxe
treatment. The original release included: Deleted scenes; a feature
length rough-cut with preliminary soundtrack or Carl Macek commentary;
Carl Macek reading Heavy Metal: Animation for the Œ80s; a 36-
minute Imagining Heavy Metal documentary; Artwork of Heavy Metal
Gallery; Production photo gallery; and a Heavy Metal Magazine cover
gallery. All are missing here, a pity.
The 90-minute feature
is organized into 24 chapters. DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do
you get when you pop the disc in your PC? No ROM extras
have been included. Parting Thoughts This
release leaves fans of the film with the hard choice of choosing
between the feature-rich release of '99 and this Superbit release. The
original presentation is very fine, but the video and the audio are
noticeably improved here. Brash and irreverent, I can easily recommend
Heavy Metal, but I'm hard pressed to guide you to one release or the
other. Prioritize your needs and make your choice.
|
Top Sellers 
