I was actually pretty stoked to watch this movie in 2000 (hey, that's the same year in the film's title ... what a coincidence). Though I wouldn't say I "loved" the original Heavy Metal, I certainly enjoyed it and welcomed the opportunity to see more mature themed science fiction-fantasy. Unfortunately Heavy Metal 2000's hideously poor execution prevents the film from succeeding on any level.
The story of Heavy Metal 2000 goes something like this. There was once a race of creatures called the Arakacians who created a fountain of immortality that allowed them to ravage the universe. Upon their defeat, however, the fountain was locked away and its key cast into deep space. Years later, the key is uncovered by some asteroid miners, one of whom touches the mysterious object and is driven insane by it. This man - whose name is Tyler - begins killing his fellow workers indiscriminately and eventually takes control of the mining vessel - as well as its crew - so that he can begin his quest to find the fountain of immortality. During his travels, Tyler comes across the planet of Eden (which really doesn't look like much of a paradise), home to a small settlement of people who - unbeknownst to them - have trace amounts of immortal water running through their veins. Having devised a way to distill this precious liquid from living organisms, Tyler lays waste to the peaceful settlement and either kills or kidnaps its populace so that they can be harvested. The only person to escape this fate is Julie, the film's obligatory bad ass hot chick who sets out on a journey to find Tyler and take revenge for her people. Obviously, this story lacks depth. That said, I won't condemn it because were talking about Heavy Metal. It isn't supposed to be intelligent or original, it's supposed to be violent, bloody and over sexed, all things that Heavy Metal 2000's creators understood. Unfortunately, what they didn't understand was how to make a good movie.
The first problem with Heavy Metal 2000 is that it foregoes its predecessors formula of using short stories in favor of a single narrative. Though I normally prefer my movies have a singular plot, the decision to move away from vignettes was a mistake in this case. One of the strengths of the original Heavy Metal was its variety. The film had noir, horror, comedy, fantasy and a variety of other genre combinations to enjoy. Even if you didn't like the story you were watching, that was ok because a completely different one would follow it. Had Heavy Metal 2000 continued this tradition, the film would have stood a much better chance of success. Instead Heavy Metal 2000 was based on a graphic novel titled "The Melting Pot" by Kevin Eastman, Simon Bisley and Eric Talbot. I've never read the source material for Heavy Metal 2000, so I honestly don't know how closely the film follows it. Regardless, the overall plot of this movie is pretty weak, but as I stated earlier that's ok. Heavy Metal isn't about intelligent or original storytelling, it's all about music, sex and violence, in other words it's supposed to be cool. Sadly, the use of both sex and violence (I'll save the music for later) in this film isn't just uncool, it all too often sucks.
I'll start with the violence. Heavy Metal 2000 delivers plenty of blood, beheadings, disembowelments and other general gore synonymous with the franchise. Unfortunately, these scenes don't really feel all that brutal or creative by todays standards. With the plethora of action and horror films now available, directors must work harder than ever if they want an audience to squirm, even in animation. Instead of doing this, however, Heavy Metal 2000 just kind of goes through the motions and the violence feels cold and distant because of it. Perhaps I've just become desensitized to such things, but outside of the gladiatorial lizard-man battle and Julie's final showdown with Tyler, I found most of the blood and guts in this film uninspired and boring. To be clear, I'm not saying this movie should be more violent - it's got plenty - I'm saying that it needs to be more creative with its use of it. Of course, a lot of the blame must go to the movies animators. These people clearly didn't have the creative vision necessary to bring a Heavy Metal film to life, and the pedestrian - albeit gory - violence is just a result of that.
Ok, before I go any further I just want to say that the next paragraph deals with the sexual content of Heavy Metal 2000. Normally I don't care for female exploitation in my entertainment, but with Heavy Metal one must accept such things without complaint, to do otherwise is just naive and pointless. Alright, so lets talk about sex baby! There's so much sex in this movie that ... wait a second, what do you mean there's no sex? Well, unlike the original Heavy Metal film - which had numerous sex scenes - Heavy Metal 2000 has none. There's plenty of nudity mind you, but nobody ends up doing the deed when it's all said and done. Now this isn't really a problem for me, but for guys who expect to see the same level of naughtiness in this film that they got in the original, you will be sorely disappointed. That little warning aside, I found most of the titillation in this movie either random or slapped on. It's like the writers were just reading over the script and said "We've gone five minutes without smut, better throw some in". Examples include the shower scene from the start of the film, the sex robot (whose only purpose was to set up a horrible one liner) and Julie's unwilling make-out session with some kind of river troll creature. None of these scenes had any purpose within the larger context of the story. Worse, their insertion into the film feels random and awkward. Once again, I don't have any issues with the subject matter being portrayed here, I just think the writers attempts to titillate are lazy.
Other problems related to Heavy Metal 2000's storytelling include the general dialog and flippant one liners. First off, the dialog is atrocious. I don't know if this is the same script as the graphic novel, or revised dialog done specifically for the movie. Regardless, it doesn't work at all when spoken aloud, most notably with the film's main character Julie. Almost all of her exchanges with the various other characters in this film are unbearable, especially when she's trying to act tough. Making matters worse is the fact that the one liners in this movie stink. Now I know there is a certain charm to cheesy one liners, but whatever that appeal is, this movie doesn't have it. I think the one that made me want to vomit most was the aforementioned sex robot one liner "Was it good for you?", Jesus Christ on a pogo stick that was awful. Seriously, was this a piece of fanfiction? I know that the graphic novel was done by a bunch of artists (two of which created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), but wasn't there a screen writer around to fix this? Anyway, I may not expect brilliant dialog or clever humor from Heavy Metal, but I do expect a certain level of professional pride and competence, neither of which I found here.
So, up to this point we have some uninteresting violence, inept attempts at erotica and terrible dialog. Not exactly a rousing start for this review, but the visual side of Heavy Metal 2000 can't be that bad ... right? Wrong, the animation in this movie ranges from generic, to amateurish. Say what you will about the low-budget animation in the first Heavy Metal movie, it had style. A visual flair that helped carry the film past its budgetary limitations. Such is not the case with Heavy Metal 2000. The overall look of this movie is so uninspired and generic, it's just sad. The only real effort I saw to make this movie look like Heavy Metal would have been with Tyler. You could see some attempt to give Tyler a distinct, almost caricature styled appearance. Unfortunately, these attempts fall woefully short of being successful because the animators don't take the exaggeration far enough. As I said before, the animation crew for Heavy Metal 2000 just didn't have the creative vision necessary to do this movie. There's supposed to be an indy type vibe with this franchise, an exaggerated style that visually matches the outrageous subject matter. Instead, Heavy Metal 2000 appears to be holding back, like it's afraid of going too far so it ends up looking like any other DTV film. More bloody and full of cartoon boobs sure, but otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of its cousins.
Then there's the CGI (oh god the CGI). Just about everything that could be done wrong with the computer animation in this film was done wrong. The overall look and execution is like something out of an internet video, the application was far too abundant and the merging of computer animation to traditional is awful. Now truth be told, there are plenty of other DTVs from this time with similar problems. Heck, one of my favorite movies from this era is Batman Subzero, and that thing had the ugliest CGI Batwing in history. So it is possible to make a good movie with bad computer animation. The problem with Heavy Metal 2000 isn't just one of poor quality though, the bigger issue at work here is the inability of the films creators to show restraint with its use. Examples include numerous traditionally rendered buildings being burned by CGI fire, characters being knocked forward by CGI explosions and an Arakacian alien animated entirely in CG! What are you doing here guys? Why would you take a tool you clearly don't understand and use it everywhere, can't you see how terrible it looks? When it's all said and done the execution of Heavy Metal 2000's computer animation looks like something you would see in a YouTube clip, amateurish and unrestrained.
The voice acting of Heavy Metal 2000 is mostly middle of the row. The only standouts would be the performances given to the films two main characters, Julie and Tyler. Tyler is voiced by Michael Ironside, the veteran actor who gave life to Darkseid in Superman the Animated Series. With a wealth of experience - not to mention talent - Ironside manages to overcome the scripts hideous dialog and pulls off the roll of Tyler relatively well. Conversely, Julie Strain Eastman delivers an absolutely egregious performance as Julie. Known primarily for her rolls in B movies, Strain Eastman clearly has no talent for voice acting and only worsens the films already bad script. Being that she was married to Heavy Metal Editor and Chief Kevin Eastman at the time, many a disparaging remakes have been made about Mr. Eastman's obvious desire to tailor the films female lead around his wife. Given the unfortunate results of his misguided affections, I have to agree with these haters.
Musically speaking, Heavy Metal 2000 has - shockingly enough - a lot of metal music. It features songs by Coal Chamber, Apartment 26, Billy Idol, Monster Magnet, Pantera, System of a Down, Queens of the Stone Age and Puya. Now I'm not much of a heavy metal aficionado, but even I recognize these band names, and overall I think they complement the Heavy Metal franchise nicely. Truth be told, this is easily the films strongest attribute.
When it's all said and done, Heavy Metal 2000 just isn't worth your time. The film's plot is (justifiably) anemic, the violence is unremarkable and the sexual content tepid. Couple that with some horrible voice acting of awful dialog, and you got a pretty F'd up movie. Sure, the film has a good soundtrack, but you can always buy that separately and spare yourself this animated mishap. So I guess there just isn't any good reason to watch this flick. If you're looking for some animated Heavy Metal, stick with the original; if you're looking for some outrageous violence, checkout anime like Afro Samurai; and if all you want is some good cartoon titillation, I recommend the first six episodes of Stripperella (I'm serious. Kevin Altieri's work on the first six episodes of that show was great).
