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| Title: HEAVY METAL Year: 1981 Rating: **** |
The best two stories from HEAVY METAL... producer Ivan Reitman's animated/cartoon anthology with a continuously-pulsating soundtrack of acts ranging from Devo to Sammy Hagar to Don Felder to Donald Fagan to Black Sabbath... have a beginning, middle and end, and either could have stretched into full-length features: starting with a futuristic film-noir homage with modernly-grungy cab-driver HARRY CANYON (voiced by MEAN STREETS actor Richard Romanus) that includes the usual pulp-signature glib narration, chain-smoked cigarettes, crooked cops, flying cars above grounded savage hoodlums and a luscious backstabbing dame...
And the last a fantasy... in the mesmerizing otherworld style of Roger Dean's progressive-rock album covers combined with Ralph Bakshi's animated-fantasy-flicks THE LORD OF THE RINGS and WIZARDS (while the urban-noir resembles Bakshi's HEAVY TRAFFIC)... that gave this 1981 cult classic its gorgeous flying-avian-riding poster-girl TAARNA who, sword in hand, violently protects a village like an antihero from a Spaghetti Western...
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| Richard Romanus as HARRY CANYON in HEAVY METAL |
Each vignette, including what resembles Saturday Morning Cartoons but with blood, guts and naked girls, have the same continuous frame-story in common: an enigmatic green orb representing all the evil in the universe, providing HEAVY METAL an eclectic array of gruesome deaths... particularly B-17 about a bomber-plane taken over by ferociously nightmarish skeleton-zombies...
But whether the story's are good, bad, or ugly... like one involving a square-jawed heroic-looking-louse buying off a witness in a space station courtroom, or two vapid/stoner aliens crash-landing their groovy spaceship (while a robot has sex with a voluptuous Pentagon secretary)... there's an ongoing sense of darkly-suspenseful dread on how that cursed orb will effect the character and/or plot's outcome...
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From HEAVY METAL story CAPTAIN STERNN
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Yet HEAVY METAL works best when it takes itself more seriously than breezily, like the JOHN CARTER OF MARS-inspired sci-fi/fantasy DEN about a cerebral teenager (with the far too-recognizable voice of John Candy) thrust onto another planet, filled with sorcery-powered wizards and fierce warriors while gifted with a new giant/muscular body and many powers: including having sex with several gorgeous, full-chested vixens...
An infamous pattern of what provided both the source magazine and the movie its harshest critique... that it's nothing beyond stoner-friendly wish-fulfillment for horny teenage boys... and yet the ultimate savior is the independent, self-contained, bird-riding barbarian-chick — then again, she's got the hottest naked body of all!
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| Richard Romanus as HARRY CANYON in HEAVY METAL |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story B-17 |
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From HEAVY METAL Story B-17
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From HEAVY METAL Story SO BEAUTIFUL & SO DANGEROUS
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| From HEAVY METAL Story SO BEAUTIFUL & SO DANGEROUS |
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From HEAVY METAL Story SO BEAUTIFUL & SO DANGEROUS
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA Body doubled by Carole Desbiens |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| Richard Romanus voices HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| Richard Romanus voices HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| Richard Romanus voices HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| Richard Romanus voices HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON
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From HEAVY METAL Story DEN
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| From HEAVY METAL Story DEN |
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| From HEAVY METAL story CAPTAIN STERNN |
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From HEAVY METAL story TAARNA
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| From HEAVY METAL story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL (1981) |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story HARRY CANYON |
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From HEAVY METAL Opening
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From HEAVY METAL Soft Landing
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| From HEAVY METAL Soft Landing |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story GRIMALDI |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story GRIMALDI |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA |
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From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA Body doubled by Carole Desbiens
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| From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA Body doubled by Carole Desbiens |
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From HEAVY METAL Story TAARNA house-band DEVO
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