Heavy Metal 2000

When watching HEAVY METAL 2000, you have to forget the first film. The original HEAVY METAL was ground-breaking in its day. After all, very few animators ever tried directing animation towards adults (only Ralph Bakshi comes to mind)in the U.S.. Add to this the fact that the original HEAVY METAL was unavailable for nearly 20 years and you have a true cult classic. It is unfair to compare them.

On its own, HEAVY METAL 2000 is ok, neither good or bad. The animation is average and the story has very little in the way of originality. The voice acting is good, but at times over-the-top. Julie Strain, however, does a very good job voice acting. The film is very predictable and none of the characters are interesting. The background art is excellent.

The music is provided by various heavy metal bands, but little of it fits in the film. The score to the film, however, is better than you would expect.

This film has very little nudity and essentially no sex. What nudity it has is pretty bland. Admit it, you picked up this film looking for illustrated nudity. Well, you won't find much.

Since the original film, anime has made its presence known in the U.S.. Frankly, GHOST IN THE SHELL has more in common with HEAVY METAL (the magazine) than HEAVY METAL 2000 does.

The most serious problems with HEAVY METAL 2000 happened before the film was started. While I credit Kevin Eastman with getting this project going, I believe he lacked the experience to make a movie. If the film had the backing of an experienced producer, the film may have benefited. If Eastman ever considers another HEAVY METAL film, perhaps he should look to Japan for animators.

I've watched this film many times. Why?! Well for one thing, we just don't have very many animated films made in America that are directed to adults. There's a whole group of animation fans that are waiting for a HEAVY METAL film that rocks. Hopefully our wishes will be fulfilled.

HM 2000 is a fairly good animated movie similar to TITAN A.E. I'm 35 and remember seeing the original HEAVY METAL in 81 and I have stacks of the magazines. I searched through pawn shops till I found a bootleg tape years before it was released. It's one of my favorites. At the theater where I used to work, HEAVY METAL was as popular as ROCKY HORROR at the midnight movies. I wouldn't want my children to watch it, as it was filled with sardonic humor, sarcasm, sex, drug use (nosedive!) and violence. I wouldn't mind my children watching HM2000 as it isn't much worse than what's on t.v. these days. And therein lies the rub, the magazine is not for all ages, and neither was the original movie. Granted, the story could have been a story in HM magazine and is, but the fans expected it to be more like the original. The Rerelease of the original was touted "louder and nastier than ever" and the fans flocked to see it, including a new generation of fans that had heard about the legendary film. The video tapes sold like hot cakes, nearly everyone I know owns a copy. Now supposedly, Kevin Eastman and associates had been working on the new movie for close to 8 years. It was chosen to be one story, instead of an anthology. That's fine if the consensus is that the story is fantastic. Unlike the original, they didn't pick the best stories from the magazine and then bring them to life. Eastman decided it would be cool to use his wife, the beautiful model and actress, Julie Strain as the model for the lead character. Cool, so far so good. Hype showed Julie in skimpy costumes wielding huge swords and submachine guns. Royo and Bisley had done numerous paintings of this Xena, Red Sonja, and Rambo all rolled into one, bad-ass warrior woman. Obviously, she was to be bigger and tougher than Taarna from the original. From Bisley's MELTING POT, the comic on which it was loosely based, one would expect massive battle fields with hand to hand combat, something like the fighting in GLADIATOR, THE 13th WARRIOR, BRAVEHEART, or SOLDIER only nastier and meaner. One would have expected villains unrivaled in their cruelty and violence, villains so vile that your blood pressure would have risen whenever they were on screen. To balance this one would expect lots of humor to flavor the story. The best movies are filled with humor even if the movie is fairly serious like AMERICAN BEAUTY or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. One would have expected lots of black humor, wise cracks and humorous situations. After all, they had 20 years to come up with a great story and a library of over 100 issues of HM that they had the legal right to use. One would have expected hot, sexy, little honeys that would have made you wish you were a cartoon, Julie Strain had done raunchy adult layouts for Earl Miller that were published in PENTHOUSE wearing the FAKK2 outfit. You would have expected this to have been one bloody, raunchy, sexy movie with a HEAVY METAL soundtrack. Would you go to a movie entitled HEAVY METAL to hear Rap or New Age or Grindcore or any other kind of music. I thought not. It does not suck because it is a bad movie, it is a relatively o.k. movie. It sucks because of what it could have been. Lastly, the decision to go cable t.v. first and then straight to video was noble, because they realized the fans would be disappointed, but stupid. We wanted to see it on the big screen. It would have earned 100 million easy. I know you don't believe me but there are LOTS of Heavy Metal fans out here and it would have. You literally threw MILLIONS of dollars away and the fans would have liked the opportunity to have seen it on the big screen even if it sucked. I know I would have and I would have been first in line for the first screening and paid my 6 bucks and all of that. My suggestion is to redeem yourselves by making a BADASS Heavy Metal 3 and go all digital, it's easier and it looks better.

Heavy Metal 2000 (2000) is a movie I recently watched for the first time in a long time on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a diabolical and ruthless man and his quest for immortality. Meanwhile a woman destined to save the universe hunts him down with plans to thwart his attempts at reaching his goal.

This movie is codirected by Michael Coldewey (The Fearless Four) and Michel Lemire (The Little Flying Bears) and contains the voices of Michael Ironside (Total Recall), Julie Strain (Beverly Hills Cop III) and Billy Idol (The Wedding Singer).

The animation for this picture was pretty good and reminded me of MTV's Liquid Television. I did miss the great monologue and narration that was in the first film provided by John Candy. I also liked how the first film had multiple villains throughout instead of one like this picture. Nudity was also better used in the first film. The soundtrack for this was a bit uneven with some songs fitting the scenes better than others. I will say the final battle was awesome and fun to watch unfold and the conclusion makes sitting through the film worth it.

Overall this is a huge step down from the first film and missed many of the elements that made the first film so great. I would score this a 5/10 and only recommend watching it if you love the first film or there's nothing better to watch.

I found this film on Sale at a music store. Months earlier I had bought the original from another music store and I found it to be pretty good! This new version I will say right off the bat, is not as good as the original. However this film has some awesome effects, great characters, and a not too bad story. This movie follows on one large story unlike the original which was a bunch of short ones put together. What I like about this was the whole atmosphere and feeling of an old, early 80's sci-fi film and I like that. Of course the music is no where NEAR as good as the original! But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. This film had less nudity but it still contained a nice bit of it. And it is quite obvious the part where she is swimming and than dresses up was taken right from the old film which was pretty cool. I suggest you be a little open minded and go take a look at this movie. I am telling you right away it is not as good as the classic original, but is worth a see and is no where near as bad as I've heard. All in all 7.5/10.

Another review here mentioned the likelihood that this was a Julie Strain Ego stroke. I kind of have to agree. I find her a terrible,not-worth-the celluloid actress, although as a cartoon she is better than in real life. The storyline was really weak. So weak in fact one has to wonder if they wrote the entire script on a paper cocktail napkin while out drinking one night. True, the first Heavy Metal's storyline was a little disjointed, but it had multiple contributors and was the first of it's kind. And as the first it was good... and FUN. This one was not fun. There was no ironic/dark comedy moments. You knew where the story was going from moment one. Total formula I could not get involved with these characters either. The writing just never made me care. Lastly there was no sense of adventure. It was just very, repeat VERY, mediocre. Leave it on the shelf at the video store.