Movie Review: Heavy Metal 3 Stars

Heavy Metal
4 Stars

1. Story 6
2. Acting 7
3. Humor 6
4. Drama 9
5. Romance 9
6. Action 9
7. Soundtrack 8

When I was in junior high school, Styx’s Kilroy Was Here LP was rumored to have been adapted into a feature length film, but had been banned from release in the U.S. because of its “political content.” Heavy Metal, which actually was a feature film, was also mired in controversy, innuendo and rumor--mainly because no one had actually seen the movie. But we had sneaked peaks at Heavy Metal, the magazine, and its depictions of bare-breasted cartoon women (when we weren’t sneaking peeks at Easy Rider, the magazine, and its depictions of bare-breasted real life women.)

Those few kids who had actually seen the movie, tagging along with older brothers who were themselves technically too young to see the movie, returned to school on Monday spouting excited tales of guns and swords and dragons and spaceships and cussing and bare-breasted cartoon women having bare-breasted cartoon sex with bare-breasted cartoon Journey playing in the background.

I didn’t actually see Heavy Metal until my senior year in high school, when the film was already playing in heavy rotation opposite The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight movies in local college $1.50 moviehouses everywhere. It was all there. The guns and swords and dragons and spaceships and cussing and bare-breasted cartoon sex women.

In other words… It was awesome! Granted, Heavy Metal was light on the heavy metal itself. Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath and Nazareth? Cool. Sammy Hagar and Journey? Maybe. Donald Fagen and Stevie Nicks? Given, Stevie Nicks is hot. But she isn’t heavy or metal. And who are Riggs and Trust?

A story of good and evil, I kept getting confused as to who exactly was good and who was evil. But perhaps that’s the message of Heavy Metal. Certainly that’s the message of all the great Blue Oyster Cult songs.