THE MOVIE

Heavy Metal 2000 is an animated film that follows one of the classic sci-fi adventure storylines, featuring a battle of good versus evil. The story goes something like this. An evil race called the Arakacians once ruled the galaxy, and they were in charge basically because they were immortal. Their immortality came from the water in a special chamber on a planet known as Uroboris. The chamber can only be opened by a special key. Anyway, the Arakacians were somehow defeated and chamber locked and key thrown away.

Many years later, a space pirate called Tyler (voiced by Michael Ironside from Starship Troopers) finds the key and goes off in pursuit of the chamber on Uroboris and immortality. During his quest he destroys Eden, the home world of Julie (voiced by Julie Strain Eastman), a girl who’s described as being a tough-as-nails cyber-babe (at least according to the packaging). Tyler kills her father and kidnaps her kid sister Kerrie. This enrages Julie who soon becomes thirsty for revenge. She chases Tyler halfway across the galaxy. The question is - can she stop him before it’s too late?

Heavy Metal is based on novel by Kevin Eastman, Simon Bisley and Eric Talbot. The character Julie is based on Eastman’s wife (see Extra Features for more details). Interestingly, Billy Idol provides the voice of the character Odin.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

This DVD is presented in wide screen (1.85:1) and is 16:9 enhanced. The video transfer is excellent. The picture is sharp and totally free of grain. This is definitely how animation was meant to be viewed. I couldn’t find any MPEG artefacts. I was a little disappointed with the colours though, I was expecting the colours to be really rich and vibrant, but they were quite the opposite. There are lots of browns and greys!

Heavy Metal 2000 consists of a rather curious blend of traditional animated scenes mixed in with computer generated backgrounds and special effects (e.g. explosions). I must admit that it didn’t really work for me. It looked very peculiar in fact, and I think I would have preferred just traditional animation without the CGI.

I couldn’t find the layer change. At first I thought it occurred 40 minutes into the film (chapter 15) but then I observed a similar pause at 43 minutes, and then another when the DVD changes from chapter 15 to chapter 16. These pauses are noticeable throughout the entire movie, especially in some of the early chapters, where the picture fades to black for almost two seconds between chapters. It’s becomes a little tedious after a while.

Audio:

There are four soundtracks to choose from on this DVD. There is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack as well a French and German Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. The forth soundtrack is an isolated musical score by Frederic Talgorn. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is awesome. This film has a great soundtrack with plenty of heavy metal music from bands like Monster Magnet, Pantera, Machine Head, Insane Clown Posse and many more. There is an appreciable amount of bass. In fact, the subwoofer seems to hum the whole way through the film. The rear channels are incredibly dynamic as well with some fantastic surround effects like the hyperspace jump in chapter 14 and the voices in the background in chapter 21.

Dialogue is always highly intelligible and audible above the loud music and deep bass. I’m not sure I can really comment on audio synch problems. It’s an animated film, and there are a few scenes where the characters lips don’t appear to match up with the words exactly, but it’s to be expected. You have to admire the animators though, they do an excellent job.

THE EXTRAS

This DVD has a short animated sequence (which is simply an excerpt from the opening credits of the movie) before the static main menu appears. The menu does have looped Dolby Digital 5.1 audio though.

Theatrical trailer
The trailer is a made-for-video extra. It is pretty lacklustre. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (pan and scan) with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. It only lasts for a minute and a half.

Featurettes
This extra feature loads a submenu where you can choose between Julie Strain ‘Super Goddess’ or Behind the Scenes. The first featurette is all about Julie Strain Eastman, the inspiration for the main character in Heavy Metal 2000 and wife of Kevin Eastman, the guy who co-wrote Heavy Metal 2000. She has apparently appeared in 110 movies, I don’t think any have been nominated for an Oscar though. Running time is 13 minutes. The Behind the Scenes featurette is rather concise (only 4 minutes long), it shows Julie, as well as Michael Ironside and Billy Idol recording the voices of the characters in the film. Unfortunately you don’t get to see any of the steps in the actual animation process, which is a little disappointing.

Animatics
Five scenes from the film comparing the storyboards and final footage. The storyboards are in widescreen (1.85:1) and the final cut plays simultaneously in an overlaid small window on the right hand side of the screen. Total running time is around 12 minutes.

Animation tests
Includes a montage of a roughly drawn animated action scenes from the film. It is narrated by Kevin Eastman, editor of Heavy Metal magazine. It’s not very exciting and only runs for 1 minute.

Photo gallery
Includes real life photos of Julie Strain as well as artwork from the film, some of the artwork is incredibly detailed and well worth a look. There’s 100 plus photos in this gallery.

SUMMARY

Heavy Metal 2000 may be an animated film, but it’s not for the faint hearted. This film is full of coarse language, sexual references, nudity and violence. The story isn’t overly complicated but it does make for some excellent eye candy. This film also has a rocking soundtrack and some very interesting extra features. So if you enjoy animation and/or science fiction, this DVD would make a great addition to your library.