Julie Strain: Supergoddess | | Cast : | Michael Ironside, Julie Strain, Billy Idol | | Director : | Michael Coldewey, Michel Lemire | | Studio : | Columbia/Tristar Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | July 10, 2000 | | DVD Released Date : | October 17, 2000 | | Language : | Portuguese (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | March 09, 2005 | | Summary | Better than the first, though obviously still problematic. | Content
 | I'm going to commit some class 'A' sacrilege here by saying this with no equivocation: Heavy Metal 2000 is, overall, a better film than the first Heavy Metal.
Of course, that's like saying Ernest Saves Christmas is better than Ernest Scared Stupid -- neither Heavy Metal film is exact a great work of cinema. But the improvements are substantial. Brush past the sentimental favouritism, and the first Heavy Metal is really a primitive work even for its time, overlong, technically horrible, with a disheartening disregard for detail. I rented both films this week just to do a comparison, and the first one doesn't hold up. Its age is not an excuse, because its approximate contemporaries in animation, not to mention Japanese anime (which has always been decades ahead of the U.S. in terms of artistic variety), aren't even close to being so crude. Characters' proportions vary from shot to shot erratically; the vehicles and creatures all look like plush dolls, so flat and monochromatic are they; and its "vignette" structure, while probably a little closer to the structure of the namesake magazine, merely adds to the aimlessness of the exercise.
Heavy Metal 2000 seems to have learned its predecessor's lessons well. Technically this one's light years ahead of the previous one -- you actually see lighting design, proper mise en scene, and even some okay action choreography. The first Heavy Metal's pacing looked like it was done by people with no sense of timing; when warrior lady Taarna swung her sword, you wonder why her opponents don't take the three-second lapse to duck or land a punch to her jaw. The sequel's music is also better -- while I also have a sentimental memory of the first Heavy Metal's soundtrack, given my soft spot for Blue Oyster Cult and Sammy Hagar, that soundtrack also had Riggs (lame), Stevie Nicks (out of place) and Don Felder with "Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride)", one of the worst attempts at hard rock ever recorded. Heavy Metal 2000's soundtrack, a collection of industrial/modern metal tunes, is less prominent in the mix, but does fall into the right tone for the cyber-sex-violence setting.
If there's one thing this sequel doesn't improve over the original, it's voice work. Why they cast Julie "I Was a Penthouse Pet" Strain as the lead actress is beyond mortal comprehension; the only reason any sane director would cast Strain is to get her to take her clothes off...and this is an animated film, for cryin' out loud! Strain's voice acting is painful to listen to, sounding like exactly what it is -- a nude model with no acting ability, speaking into a microphone in the studio. Michael Ironside provides some relief as the lead baddie, and Billy Idol's cameo voice work certainly draws a chuckle, but the first Heavy Metal's voice-actor list (John Candy, Harold Ramis, Richard Romanus) was better.
You might argue that any analysis or evaluation of either Heavy Metal film is moot -- this is supposed to be entertaining, brainless, sexist, violent, juvenile trash meant to be consumed like so much junk food. But even in junk food there's good or bad, and I'd say this sequel fills the junk-food role better, given its better look, far superior action sequences, and more coherent story. I do regret that they didn't bring back Taarna, the silent heroine of the first film. Given the superior artwork of this film, she would definitely have looked hotter than ever. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 26, 2004 | | Summary | Good job of craftsmanship- and totally forgettable | Content
| I'll give you a measure of how forgettable this film was- I bought the new release of the original Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000 at the same time. I found myself remembering almost every scene in the original movie, even though I hadn't seen it in over 20 years. Then I watched HM2000. About halfway through I vaguely recalled that I had seen it before, but there wasn't one single scene that I clearly remembered- and I probably only saw it about three years ago. It was that forgettable, that ordinary. Don't get me wrong; this isn't necessarily a bad film. The animation is very well done, very slick and seamless. The writing and voice acting is competent and professional. The sound track is certainly better incorporated into the animation and story than it was in the original. Everything was competently done, it was just.... ordinary. Nothing jumped out at you. It was like a Saturday morning cartoon episode- just with a little more violence, and a lot more animated nudity (animated nudity- I mean what's the point?) Personally, I'd save my money and buy the new release of the original Heavy Metal. Sure, the animation looks crude by today's standards- but it was done the old, time-consuming, expensive way of drawing one cell at a time. The original was also crammed full of a variety of different animation styles and story lines. Perhaps that was because it was the first big budget science fiction animated feature and the people involved had so much enthusiasm that they tried to do too much. In contrast, I don't think anyone got too enthusiastic about this film. Sure, they did a solid job of craftsmanship, but where is the originality, the fire, the spirit? Kind of reminds me of the original heavy Metal magazine, it started out fresh and new and just slowly petered out to nothing.... |
| Rating | | | Date | October 26, 2003 | | Summary | Poor sequal | Content
| The main problem with this film, at least in my opinion, is that it isn't a conglomeration of stories like the original was. Its all one story, one set of characters, one group of animators...and it therefore doesn't have the "epic" appeal the original did. It would have been nice, knowing so many American animators out there who wouldn't mind having such an innocent start in their career, to have had different stories done by different people. Why can't we have an American version of "Robot Carnival" or perhaps more recently "The Animatrix"? That being said, lets talk about this movie. A miner working on a meteor discovers an evil glowing rock that turns him evil and makes him do evil things. He promptly dubs himself the evil "Lord Tyler" and takes over the ship making the crew do evil things. OK, listen, who the hell decided to name him Lord Tyler? That is the dumbest, most unthreatening name in film history. It sounds like a 98 pound dweeb who's been going at Dungeons and Dragons too much. "Gna! I am Lord Tyler! Fear me! Gnaaaaaa!" Any way, Lord Tyler takes his evil crew and quickly attacks a peaceful, defenseless planet because he can. Sadly, he fails to kill Julie and her sister, the latter which he kidnaps obviously so he can do evil things to her. Julie picks up an annoying sidekick because every needs one, and together they go to a space station. What follows is one of the worst animated action scenes in history. Julie stands and shoots her gun, the villains stand and shoot their gun...and every dies except either of them. Clearly the bullets are hurt that these two groups of people would want to kill each other, and must kill others to show them that violence is stupid. Or maybe the director just stinks at making action scenes. Lord Tyler gets away casting "magic missile" and lands on a planet inhabited by lizard beings and six-eyed weenies. The six-eyed weenies hold the water of eternal life, but Lord Tyler is scared by six-eyed people so he just goes with the lizard people instead, hoping to let them do the fighting for him. Julie tries to seduce and slaughter him, but some how the rock care bear in the story runs in, pulls her out, and the movie continues another thirty minutes. Then there's the climactic battle between the lizards and weenies. Julie and archnemesis Lord Tyler duke it out in a poorly choreographed fight before he's finally killed (actually, his mom tells him to stop playing "Everquest" and asks him to come up for dinner). The movie could end, but then one of the good guys turns out to be a CG monster and the movie continues another five minutes. Then it ends. Finally. So what is this storyline? Well, like reviewers before me have said, its basically the last story in the original film but stretched out for another hour and a half. It could have been cool but...no it wasn't. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 25, 2003 | | Summary | A vain attempt. | Content
| Like my title suggests this movie is a vain attempt to take credit from the first movie to sell sub-par music to a new generation of viewers. The first Heavy Metal obviously had some thought put into the scenes and the pace of the story line. The artistry was phenomanal in the first movie, much better than the mish mosh of computer graphics and hand drawn animation in Heavy Metal 2000. The first movie made sure the music reinforced and enhanced whatever scene was being played, the second, well the music really did not add much if anything at all the movie. To sum up...boring plot, no imagination, and a sound track to not die for. My advice? Use the DVD as a coaster and read a good Frank Herbert novel instead. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 31, 2002 | | Summary | We've already seen this movie... | Content
| Watch the last segment of the original Heavy Metal called "Tarna" instead. The plot scheme of HM2K is lifted directly from that. They took a tight short story from one film and stretched it out needlessly here. The details have changed, but it's still the same story. The same major plot points exist: "Joe Nobody" encounters weird green object that turns him evil. Newly evil bad guy slaughters docile people without warning. Babe in high heel boots hunts him down for payback. Bouncy cleavage shots ensue. Don't get me wrong, I dig the cleavage... but no one actually got down and dirty. Onscreen nudity without sex = BORING. Several scenes were torn DIRECTLY from the original movie's "Tarna" segment. Why do angry babes bent on revenge always catch the bad guys drinking at some dive bar? The one scene that brought home the lack of originality was when our heroine FAKK2 takes a dip in a pool and gets dressed in a leather bikini to do battle near the end. It was a shot-for-shot remake of Tarna taking a dip in a pool, then dressing in a leather bikini to do battle in the original movie. I do not exaggerate, they both put on their Victoria's Secret battle gear the SAME WAY. That would have been fine if this was a true sequel connected to the previous story. But this is not the case. HM2K is boring. The attempts at jokes all fall flat. You can get more bawdy humor from an episode of South Park on TV. The action scenes are clunky. The ... shots do nothing to stir the libido. There are many other faults, but the main problem is that someone thought this was a great idea and decided to waste their money to make it. |
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