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Rating:  - AWSOME!!!
Classic movie that I absolutely love and have since first saw it when I was younger. The PSP takes nothing from the movie in my opinion. The first time I owned this movie was good ole' VHS Movie Cassette, but I am very pleased to have found a mobile copy that I can now take with me on trips.
Rating: - "Heavy Metal" Is A Classic, But Its Time to Give Den His Own Feature
No doubt about it, "Heavy Metal" is one of the most original, provocative movies of the eighties, or of any decade for that matter. A tremendous wealth of artistic talent went into creating this animated anthology. It is packed with science fiction adventure and eroticism. A multitude of high profile animators, musicians, and actors contributed to this classic. Released when MTV was booming on cable, it is understandable why it continues to have a cult following. Before "Heavy Metal" was officially released on VHS, it was one of the most pirated films in history. Every fan of the Heavy Metal magazine had to possess it.
As a fan of the Italian sword and sandal movies of the sixties, my favorite story line in "Heavy Metal" is based on the character of Den. Voiced by actor John Candy and drawn by popular adult animator Richard Corben, Den was the idol of every nerd boy who dreamed of becoming the muscle bound super hero. Take your favorite Olympian bodybuilder, imagine them nude, bald and well endowed and you have Corben's graphic novel version of Den. (The "Heavy Metal" movie has Den wearing a loincloth, much to the chagrin of numerous fans who wrote complaint letters to Heavy Metal magazine.) The Den saga exemplified the essence of Heavy Metal; it was erotically charged science fiction adventure for adults. When the feature ended, so did my patronage of Heavy Metal magazine.
Unfortunately, the story line for Den in the "Heavy Metal" movie is too short. One only receives a brief peek of Den's life. This character warrants a full length feature. "Fire and Ice" has been recently released by Blue Underground and features sensually dressed characters drawn by renown artists Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi. Fans of Richard Corben should rally for a full length adult feature of their hero, Den.
Rating: - Heavy Metal UMD
I saw Heavy Metal when I was in high school way back in the day. It hasn't changed, its still funny and imaginative. I didn't remember all of the cartoon nudity, but I'll be OK. The PSP really does a good job with these movies. When I bought the PSP it was mainly for the games, but as I start to watch movies on it, I realize that I was missing out.
Rating: - A Classic Film
This film is a liberating experience in storytelling. I can't recommend it highly enough to a mature audience.
Once of the things that keeps drawing me back is the sweeping symphonic soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein. It's absolutely brilliant, and you notice it mostly during the Den and Taarna stories. This soundtrack has recently been re-released.
I did notice one negative of the remastering process; in the bootleg copies of the late 80s and early 90s there were several sounds present that did not show up in the DVD release (for example, the skeleton with no jaw that used to make a gurgling sound but no longer does). These are minor but still noticeable.
Small details worthy of scrutiny drive the continued admiration for the film. Some of the animation lacks refinement in certain segments like Den, but is exceptional in Captain Sternn.
Overall, this film is a top notch experience.
Rating:  - Super cheesy and great 80's animated film.
Well what can I say about Heavy Metal, it was definetely one of the weirdest adult animated films out there. The storyline was cheesy as hell but I still ended up enjoying it, it did have a clever plot but some parts were uneven however it was still a very enjoyable film, one of the main reasons why I was initially interested in this film was because I heard that it was a cult classic and I also heard that they were going to make a new one next year which is going to be directed by David Fincher which should be interesting. Heavy Metal 1981 was simply a great effort that showcases a group of animators from all over the world creating different stories which were taken from the Heavy Metal magazine, I must admit that the script was all over the place but it was visually stunning in an old animated style and at that time was quite innovative cause it used the retroscoping technique, Heavy Metal is more of a sci/fi fantasy film with some added humor and it's also unintentionally hilarious cause of all the nudity and off course all the female characters happen to have huge [...] (hey not bad but it does look abit outdated) and alot of violence and gore so it's definetely not for kids, I would say maybe for teens and older. Some parts do look crude and stiff like in Harry Canyon where the main character Harry who is a cab driver in a futuristic New York city looked abit deformed especially when he was eating a sandwich. The artistry changed with each segment of the movie. You could tell that the same animators only worked on their segment, and then the style would change for the next one. Ivan Reitman who was the producer of this film decided to include his SCTV friends John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty and Harold Ramis to do some voice over work for the film, some of them including the late John Candy voiced more than one character.
Since there is no linear story line it is difficult to describe the plot synopsis. The movie centers around an evil orb called the Loc-Nar which has the ability to transcend time and space. The Loc-Nar traps a little girl and tells numerous star-spanning tales of those who have tried to use the Loc-Nar for their own personal gain. I don't want to spoil the mystery and surprise and plus you would probably laugh, I mean its not that bad just don't expect something like anime or the kind of animation that comes from Disney or Dreamworks. The standout segments are So Beautiful, So Dangerous, Captain Stern, Taarna, B17 and Den I didn't like Harry Canyon cause like I mentioned earlier that the animation looked very crude and choppy and the story dragged on a bit. Anyway each segment has something unique to offer to animation fans, B17 was written by Dan O'Bannon who also wrote the script for Alien and Return Of The Living Dead among others. B17 is a horror story involving the dead crew of a WW2 bomber who come back to life as zombies (my personal favorite) it has a very creepy atmosphere and some gore. Den was about this nerd who gets transported to another dimension and gets a new body with all new abilities which also includes seducing naked women, he then has to rescue a princess? or something and take the Loc-Nar from a race of viscous mutants, this was my second fave cause it was a bit funny and had the best animation along with Taarna. Taarna was about a strong and beautiful female warrior named Taarna who is the last of her race of strong warriors taking revenge upon a group of evil aliens who have destroyed and massacred a civilization, this segment had the best storyline and was beautifully animated especially when Taarna was riding her flying creature (the picture on the dvd cover) it was visually stunning and looked really cool not to mention it had an excellent orchestral score done by Elmer Bernstien.
The soundtrack to the film was also quite good and the music fit each segment nicely, you have great musicians like Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Journey etc. and some of the songs kicked a** I might get the soundtrack later, its a good example of 80's rock and metal (no hair metal thank god!). Columbia Tristar presents HEAVY METAL in a widescreen 16x9 enhanced version (1:85:1) and the sound is in dolby digital 5.1 mix and if the superior audio and video portions don't sell you on this DVD than the special edition materials will. A highlight of the extras is a full length rough cut version of the film with audio commentary with Carl Macek (some guy who knows alot about this film) and a 35 minute documentary called IMAGINING HEAVY METAL with the usual behind the scenes show featuring interviews from Ivan Reitman and the crew. There is two deleted scenes as well called Neverwhere Land, and an alternate framing sequence. There is also a ton of artwork, photos, galleries, etc: The Artwork of Heavy Metal, Production Photo Gallery, Pencil Portfolio with Animations, and a Heavy Metal Magazine cover gallery featuring cover shots of every issue from 1977 to the present!. This is quite a remarkable animated film there has been no other film to mix sci-fi adult themes with heavy metal music since HEAVY METAL debuted in 1981. Although I can think of a handful of Japanese animated films that have come close but thats another story, the sequel however was very disappointing I expected it to be just as great or even better than this film but it wasn't, despite using a more advanced animation technique and cgi it just didn't work, it was still watchable though. Heavy Metal was a great cult classic animated film and its one of my favorites, good to watch after midnight cause its weird and cool but its probably better if your stoned out of your mind ;-).
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