I was a little too young to watch this (10) when it first came out, but, on a whim, I watched it on NetFlix the other night.
The animation was embarrassingly bad. Fans of the movie seem to be poo-pooing anyone who comments on how bad the animation is, but come on, the animation is done at a REALLY low frame rate, causing movement to look really stiff and jerky.
That said, the artwork is rather good, in a comic-book sort of way. The style was very unique, and was clearly influenced by the cartoons of Ralph Bakshi. Even though the movie was a series of episodes, there was a uniform look and tone, which I enjoyed.
The writing, again, pretty much on a par with some comic books of the era. If you are a fan of any of the anthology comics from the seventies, like "House of Mystery" or "House of Secrets" you will see many parallels (including the fact that Bernie Wrightson, well-known as a horror comic artist primarily in the 70s and 80s, contributed work to the movie).
The voice acting was laughable -- but in a good way. It seems as if most of the actors accepted this gig as a goof. No one really seems to be taking the material all that seriously, which is good, because it is NOT Shakespeare.
I am not familiar with the magazine, "Heavy Metal," so I can't draw any comparisons to that; but for me, the movie reminded me most of the comic book inserts that they used to include in "National Lampoon." Kind of quirky, intentionally camp, and with decent enough artwork.
It was a nice enough movie, although the horrible quality of the animation did tend to distract from the story -- what there was of it.
The animation was embarrassingly bad. Fans of the movie seem to be poo-pooing anyone who comments on how bad the animation is, but come on, the animation is done at a REALLY low frame rate, causing movement to look really stiff and jerky.
That said, the artwork is rather good, in a comic-book sort of way. The style was very unique, and was clearly influenced by the cartoons of Ralph Bakshi. Even though the movie was a series of episodes, there was a uniform look and tone, which I enjoyed.
The writing, again, pretty much on a par with some comic books of the era. If you are a fan of any of the anthology comics from the seventies, like "House of Mystery" or "House of Secrets" you will see many parallels (including the fact that Bernie Wrightson, well-known as a horror comic artist primarily in the 70s and 80s, contributed work to the movie).
The voice acting was laughable -- but in a good way. It seems as if most of the actors accepted this gig as a goof. No one really seems to be taking the material all that seriously, which is good, because it is NOT Shakespeare.
I am not familiar with the magazine, "Heavy Metal," so I can't draw any comparisons to that; but for me, the movie reminded me most of the comic book inserts that they used to include in "National Lampoon." Kind of quirky, intentionally camp, and with decent enough artwork.
It was a nice enough movie, although the horrible quality of the animation did tend to distract from the story -- what there was of it.