Because we’re all too broke to go to the theater or afford gold-plated rental services, FSR is offering free movies every Monday for the month of September. If this title doesn’t strike your fancy, head to Crackle.com to see what else they have for your viewing pleasure. The selection is great, and even better – the price is right.
If you haven’t seen Heavy Metal, there’s a solid chance that your brain is still in its original, unmolested state. That’s a shame.
The flick is an animated joy ride in a stolen vehicle through a universe filled with glowing green orbs made of pure evil, irate cab drivers in Dystopian New Yorks, graphic alien sex, laser beams, large-breasted warrior maidens, brilliant O’Bannon tales, and the heavy sounds of Blue Oyster Cult, Devo, Black Sabbath, and Cheap Trick.
It’s a veritable celebration of good old American know how and alien worlds.
If you love it, you know you want to see it again. If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to stop reading my ramblings and go watch it.
As anthology films go, this is one of the classics. It refuses to play by any rules and acts like a forerunner for great sci-fi trips like The Animatrix. There’s been talk of a reboot of the film with a group of modern sci-fi masters, and even though that would be as incredible as seeing Kenny from South Park roll around the world of Taarna, the original would still be a landmark film.
Maybe it was the freedom of the 80s and the new found appreciation of rotocscoping, but Heavy Metal creates a cartoon that’s about as appropriate for children as an asbestos-laced vial of crack cocaine that’s jammed into an electrical socket.
It flows naturally from the pulp sci-fi stories of old and the short stories of Heavy Metal Magazine. Buried in the middle of each tale is the mystical green orb that seems to melt just about anyone who lays eyes on it – sort of like an floating, green, alien Ark of the Covenant. Ancient barbarians ride on dragon-like mounts through a world of technological advancement and landscapes of magenta mountains and multiple suns rising. It’s a blend of the skull-wearing tribes of thousands of years ago transplanted somehow deep into the future.
Luckily, the stories are told really well, featuring enough action to satisfy and enough intrigue to keep the mind occupied in between bouts of animated nudity and blood splatter.
Seriously. Why are you still reading this?
Watch Heavy Metal or check out the other films that Crackle has to offer. For free.
Related Topics: Animation
