Heavy Metal

Is it good? Is it bad? I guess the answer to that lies squarely with whether or not you grew up with Heavy Metal, or if you’re a thirteen-year-old straight boy. It seemed aimed squarely at the mentality of that particular group – most of the stories devolve into scenes of random violence and sex. Even the female characters with any kind of agency are scantily clad and frequently used as little more than sex objects. The entire thing is seen from the prism of a pubescent mind, which doesn’t mean that Heavy Metal has no charms.

On a mindless level, there’s plenty of dumb fun to be had. Only two sequences really stand out for me, in a positive way. “B-17” and “Taarna” are the unquestionable highlights, bothering to push the boundaries of their stories into scary or epic constructs. “Taarna” is one of the best shorts based purely on the iconography of its main character, it is she that we glimpse on the film’s poster. These two are also the most effective uses of the soundtrack, which in others can appear oppressive or strangely out of synch with the material. Dated, more than a little sexist, and fairly mindless, Heavy Metal isn’t good in any real sense of the word, but it is fun in a midnight-movie kind of way.