Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Spurred on by the increased interest in sci-fi and fantasy, in the late 70s the avant-garde French comic Metal Hurlant (which translates, I believe, as Shrapnel) became the American magazine Heavy Metal. Combining stylish drawing and comic art traditions, the magazines created marvelous worlds of superscience and evocative primitive fantasies as well, on an adult level that often included erotic overtones along with experimental, sometimes abstract approaches.

The 1981 animated feature Heavy Metal captured the look of some of Heavy Metal's best designers, but was saddled with an episodic script that catered to rowdy young males. At the time, the notion of an animated film not for kids was a tough sell, and there was some novelty to be had in a scene where a bimboish character in a futuristic space port stripped off for the camera.

Heavy Metal 2000 is a big step down from the original's already iffy level of quality. The story is a Tolkien -ish ripoff about a crystal of power that enables the holder to rule the universe, but makes him insane, blah blah blah. The miner (voiced by immediately-recognizable Michael Ironside) who finds the crystal kills his partner, grows fangs and sets off to return it to a particular planet where he'll realize his evil destiny.

Opposing him are two sisters, the only survivors of a city he's destroyed. One's a shrinking prisoner type, and the other is a fightin' mama (voiced by Julie Strain Eastman) who dresses exclusively in superhero-ish tights and martial accessories. Both naturally get naked two or three times each, the anatomy-specific animation showing the same attention to detail as your average public toilet art. In the final battle, the weaker sister becomes just as aggressive as the other, lopping off the heads of invading lizard warriors who storm the ramparts, just as in The Two Towers.

The characters are just plain ugly. Everyone insults everyone else with total contempt and lame put-downs. An abandoned minion of the main baddie tags along with each of the sisters in turn, repeatedly trying out crude come-ons. The world of the story is half aggressive, abusive sex, and half sneering verbal hostility, a combo which severely retards our willingness to buy into the fantasy for anything more than a similar cheap thrill.

If it were thrilling, that is. The action is limited to nasty gundowns, repetitive spaceship battles, and dumb, gory hack'n slash combat. If this is all the fantasy-inclined Dungeons & Dragons crowd are after, it isn't much of a testament to their maturity or intelligence.

And it isn't all that pretty either. The futuristic designs are more cluttered than inspired, and many of the landscapes are hackwork, as lacking in personality as the metal band music (what else) that slams in at regular intervals.

There's one amusing but underused multi-eyed rocklike character, perhaps the only aspect of the film not affected by the urge to be rasty-nasty. It would have been nicer if he had more to do.

Any fully animated film is an expensive proposition, and Heavy Metal 2000 has a long list of producing entities. It also spread its animation scores among facilities in a half dozen countries, including obvious sweatshop operations in the far East.

Columbia TriStar's SuperBit DVD of Heavy Metal 2000 certainly looks good, with the bright and detailed image expected from the 'save the data for the transfer' concept. I haven't seen the previous version, and so do not know if the visual difference in these discs is worth the extra investment. Judging by the title's popularity, it might be, just as my criticisms of the film for its crassness and softcore thrills are probably irrelevant.