Heavy Metal is a cool project – based on the titular magazine, its an animated anthology of sci-fi/fantasy/horror stories with gratuitous sex and violence. The heavily promoted soundtrack includes Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, and Blue Oyster Cult, and comedians like John Candy, Harold Ramis, and Eugene Levy voice several characters. So I guess it’s mostly a “cool project” to anyone whose emotional growth remains stunted in 8th grade like mine. The first story (“Harry Canyon”), a grimy noir following a cab driver in a rundown future NYC, is the only vignette that truly delivers on the promise of the concept – it’s pulpy and fun and juvenile, but not as mindless as ensuing stories which essentially feel like Saturday morning cartoons with boobs. These less memorable tales vary between mildly entertaining (“Den”) and mostly worthless (“So Beautiful and So Dangerous”). With a plot that doesn’t even hint at comprehensibility and vivid, lurid animation, Heavy Metal is a film best enjoyed with some kind of mind-altering additive on-hand. The music isn’t exactly heavy metal, either (Journey? Stevie Nicks??).
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