Disappointment for a huge fan!

Brilliant and touching

Better Late Then Never

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The galaxies were once ruled by the cruel Arakacians. The source of their powers lay within a chamber on Planet Uroboris. Its waters hold eternal life. Only a single key can unlock the chamber. After their defeat, the key was cast out and lost until now. Tyler is a miner who finds a shard. He is driven mad for power and immortality. He and his crew attack a planet taking prisoners including Kerrie. Kerrie's sister Julie sets out to get revenge.This doesn't have quite the same cult camp value as the original. There are a few differences that diminishes the product. The animation is duller with computer animation that changes the look of the franchise. I rather have the same look and feel of the original. This has the looks of a good TV adult cartoon. The subject is still a lot of sex and violence but the vignettes are gone. I miss the structure of the vignettes. The story feels cobbled together from a few different sources. The vignettes allowed the original to try different styles and different ideas. That was the cool part. The shorter stories have better tension and allowed for changes in tones. This one drags on despite being less than 90 minutes.

An ordinary space miner named Tyler touches a shard of a glowing rock that gives him a hunger for power and a thirst for immortality. He attacks a space colony, Eden, to kill people and collect survivors who have a precious substance in their blood. Unfortunately for Tyler, he kidnapped Kerrie, but left alive her sister Julie. Germain was in his crew, but when Germain tries to protect Kerrie, Tyler leaves Germain behind.Julie dragoons Germain, and they follow Tyler on his journey to a jump point. They hitch a ride just before Tyler's ship enters the wormhole (the 'jump point'). Tyler tries to kill them. The results are really bad for both ships. They crash on a nearby planet where Julie meets Odin and his rock-like assistant. Odin is in search of the 'Key' (the glowing rock) which Julie is oblivious to.Tyler becomes leader of a local race of lizard people. He searches for the pool of the pure substance that will give him immortality. Odin leads Julie to Tyler's ship, where she rescues Kerrie. They go back to the city that protects the pool and the chamber of immortality.Will Julie and her new friends be able to protect the city from the lizard horde? Will they keep Tyler from his goal? -----Scores------Art/Animation: 6/10 Varies from barely competent to good. It seems a bit weak for a film made around 2000. Also, the use of mixed productions modes (some flat, some hand drawn, some done by export of 3d modeling) is rather distracting.Sound: 8/10 The sound levels might have been a bit better balanced. The metal background music seemed to be kept too low compared to the sound levels for gunfire, explosions and voices.Voice: 10/10 Michael Ironside, Julie Strain, Billy Idol, and Pier Paquette were all fine.Screenplay: 7/10 The twin quests for revenge and for immortality move the story right along. However, the story lacks the powerful heart and heroism of the first film.

Having seen the original Heavy Metal about 12 times, I was excited to hear that they were doing a sequel and that it would be a full length feature. The magazine format of the original had been one of its more troublesome aspects, thanks in large part to the clumsy framing device of the evil Loch Nar. Still, the gory fight action, hard rock soundtrack and nude scenes made for a pretty original viewing experience, especially for a cartoon. And Heavy Metal's subsequent influence on anime and other sci-fi long ago assured it of significant cult status.The sequel film, however, proved to be something of a disappointment. The character design and background visuals are quite good and the action is smoothly animated, but the story line is derivative and lacks imagination. Given all of the not-yet-filmed stories in the history of genre literature, yet another revenge for murder plot line seems totally unnecessary, and the addition of a fantasy story hook about a nasty villain searching the galaxy for a source of unlimited power is just a meretricious add-on. I found myself enjoying the look of the movie, while being bored out of my mind by its paint-by-numbers story and weak dialog. Approach with caution and keep expectations low.

This follow up to the cult animated movie Heavy Metal is a pale shadow of the original. It's not entirely without entertainment value but it does seem a fairly half-hearted sequel. The first film was hardly perfect; it was very rough around the edges and quite dumb, although that was part of the charm. However, it did possess some originality and character, traits in short supply in Heavy Metal 2000. It also successfully combined its elements of sci-fi, fantasy and erotica together, so that it worked pretty well as a sexy cartoon adventure. Where it also differed significantly was in having an anthology structure as opposed to a single story format. This worked to the original's benefit, as no single plot strand over-stayed its welcome, and a wild selection of tales was loosely joined together. Heavy Metal 2000 has one story, and not one that is especially great for a whole movie to hang on. The animation is slicker than the original but with less character and certainly not great in any case. It seems to be more-or-less a vehicle for Julie Strain, seeing as the central character is basically her. And the film lacks a variety of other female characters to keep things more interesting. The world depicted in this comic really depends on its buxom heroines and relying on one female character is a mistake. Julie's sister is only a minor player in the film, and should have had more screen time. And this leads to another weakness – there just isn't enough erotic content either. This is key ingredient of the world of Heavy Metal, and it does seem careless for the film-makers to have put too little emphasis on it.Having said all of this, this feature isn't a total wash-out. It does provide some entertainment and it is still in the same general ball-park as the first movie. So it's diverting enough and quite good fun. It just should have been better that's all.