| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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HEAVY METAL 2000
aka
HEAVY METAL: F.A.K.K.2
Rating: 
Canada/Germany. 2000.
Directors – Michael Coldewey & Michel Lemire, Screenplay – Robert Payne Cabeen, Based on the Graphic Novel The Melting Pot by Simon Bisley, Kevin Eastman & Eric Talbot, Producers – Lemire & Jacques Pettigrew, Photography – Bruno Philip, Music – Frederic Talgorn, Music Supervisor – Bruce Berman, Art Direction – Gerard Frischeteau & Michel Guerin. Production Company – Cine-Groupe/Helkon Media/Das Werk.
Voices:
Julie Strain Eastman (Julie/F.A.K.K.), Michael Ironside (Tyler), Pier Kohl (German St Germain), Brady Moffatt (Lambert), Billy Idol (Odin), Rick Jones (Zeek), Sonja Ball (Kerrie)
Plot: Space miner Tyler discovers a green crystal amidst some space debris. The crystal is a key that has been left behind by the all-powerful Arrakatians and can bestow immortality. It turns Tyler into a ruthless tyrant and he marshals an army and slaughters the people of the planet Eden. The only survivor of the massacre is Julie who swears to kill him. But as she hunts him down she finds he has distilled the blood of her people into a serum that bestows temporary invulnerability to all damage upon himself. He must be stopped before he can return to the planet Ouroboros and unlock the gateway left by the Arrakatians that will allow him to become permanently immortal.
When Heavy Metal (1981) came out, it became a cult film and a midnight favourite. It offered animation that was pitched to adults rather than kids; it contained a high content of sex and violence; and came filled with spacey, trippy visuals – even if in the end it was piecemeal and ultimately too adolescent to be a particularly good film. Over the ensuing nineteen years the possibility of a sequel has been discussed numerous times both in live-action and animation, which was something that finally emerged with this. Unfortunately the result is somewhat of a disappointment. The problem is that in the nineteen years in between films, the real world has overtaken everything that made Heavy Metal unique. The advent of CGI animation in even routine animated releases and tv has rapidly outstripped Heavy Metal’s trippy visuals, while the whole cult of anime quite regularly delves into sex and violence with a perversity and ferocity that makes Heavy Metal look rather tame.
Heavy Metal 2000 is disappointingly routine in every regard. As opposed to the original it tells only one story instead of seven (adapted from a graphic novel co-written by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator Kevin Eastman) – it is quite similar to the Tarrna segment in the original film. But it is a thoroughly routine space opera. The plot only trades in cliches – the ultra-tough kickass heroine seeking revenge for the murder of her people; the villain who cannot be killed; an ancient artifact of great power on an alien planet. It has the usual “adult” preoccupations of Heavy Metal magazine – gratuitous shower scenes, ultra-violence with heads being splattered in slow-motion and the like, even scenes with lizard’s fucking. The film’s one inventive touch in this regard is the character of a sex robot that mouths over-the-top mimicry of sexual excitement. There are some good action scenes – the barroom shootout, the destruction of the heroine’s home planet – but nothing that is remarkable.
Copyright Richard Scheib 2000
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