Reviews
Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)
A mediocre movie, you'll watch several times on cable.
It's nice to have an animated movie for adults...well anything without the usual trappings of an American animated movie (you know singing toasters and the like). Hey, I'm all for scif-fi...but this movie could have used a little more work. The music (with the exception of the bar-scene), didn't fit in well with the action...kind of seemed a little forced.
Julie strain is a pretty lady, perfect as the physical inspiration of the lead character, but when you're doing voice-over work you need to a distinctive voice and I don't feel that she does. Billy idol was a good choice in this respect.
The animation wasn't bad. It is, however, tough to combine cg and traditional animation without the latter appearing flat. The designs seemed to stray a little bit from the Simon Bisley artwork of the series. I would be interested in picking up the magazine to see how the comic and movie differed.
Although I gave the movie a 6, I do hope hope that this not the last effort from Eastman and the bunch from Heavy Metal Mag., they showed a lot of potential. Hopefully the economics are there to give rise to another movie.
Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (1972)
One of the originals
Like many people in the 20-30 yr old range, I grew up watching Battle of the Planets. The show had incredible action sequences and realistic portrayls of the main characters. Years later I learned the show had been dubbed and judiciously eddited from the Japanese show Gatchaman. In the last few years I have been able to see most of the original episode of Gatchaman and have a much greater appreciation of the show. From Power Rangers to Voltron...this show started the team genre.