Rock & Rule (1983)

Very Cool!!!

Some things I liked some I did not.

Please don't spend money on this.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Somewhere as a cross between heavy metal and fritz the cat, the main characters look a grungier version of characters from the Goofy movie. The film does have an impressive musical cast featuring songs by Cheap Trick, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and Earth Wind and Fire to name a few. The plot takes place in you typical 1980's post apocalyptic world, but is quite easy to follow. The villain voiced by Don Francks gives off an almost David Bowie type performance, and sometimes the comic relief can be a bit unneeded. Would I suggest Giving this a watch sure, its an innocent enough piece of animation. That gives and great cast of musical talent.

For those who have never heard of this ugly looking animated feature, think if "Heavy Metal" (1981) was redrawn by furries on quaaludes and dubbed it like a kung-fu movie. Oh and the music sucks.Set in the far future long after humans have destroyed themselves, stray mutant dogs, cats and rats have taken over and created a dystopian society run on sub-par rock & roll. The most powerful man-thing in the world, Mok (Iggy Pop) has a plan to unleash an inter-dimensional being that would destroy everything in its path. Why? Because he's evil. The only hitch in his plan is a woman-mouse-cat type thing Angel (Deborah Harry), who possesses the voice needed to open the portal. Problem is she's got her own band fronted by her continuously aloof boyfriend Omar (Robin Zander). So he devises a clever plan pitting them against each other and...just kidding! No he actually just kidnaps her.Supposedly "Rock & Rule" was jolly-rogered by MGM's changing management and forced to rewrite and move things around. Apparently the studio was not excited about an animated project with constant casual and forced drug use, devil worship and sexuality. It's even more subversive when you consider all the characters look like Goofy and his extended family have taken over. Regardless I doubt this movie would have amounted to anything even if it had 100% studio support. The characters are dopey, the songs are boring and the animation is lazily cheap. The Omar character in particular is so incredibly unlikeable I found myself rooting for the bad guys.I doubt anyone watched "Rock & Rule" when they were little. If they did they have much bigger problems than film taste. But with a cult following thanks to late night HBO showcases and a surprisingly formidable 6.4 on IMDb out of a group of 1,426 voters, I'm starting to think people will make a cult out of anything.http://theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com/

After 25 years of reading about this Canadian animated movie from Nelvana in the now-defunct magazine ComicScene, I finally checked out Rock & Rule from the library a few weeks ago. It was the single disc version so there was no longer alternate CBC version nor the previous Nelvana TV short "The Devil and Daniel Mouse" (which I remember enjoying one late Saturday morning in the late '70s) that I read was on a second disc. The animation was certainly awesome enough for the period with the futuristic sets and character designs. The songs by Blondie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, and Earth, Wind, & Fire were enjoyable if not completely memorable (though if I could listen to these tunes more than once, they'd probably get stuck in my head). I was intrigued by some of the dialogue in some scenes like the "Evil spelled backwards is Live" line. The plot seemed entertaining enough as it was but for some reason I wasn't as overly impressed with it as I thought I was. Maybe it was because it had some material I was overly familiar with like the girl being some power force that I recognized from The Fifth Element which I remember not being too impressed with (though I realize that that movie came out about 13 years after Rock & Rule). Still, for animation fans and those of the artists I just mentioned, Rock & Rule is certainly worth checking out.

The re-dubbed American cable edit is absolutely horrible. It rips the heart and soul out of the movie - right from the intro where Mok's code isn't referred to as "satanic", to the removal of almost all of the drug references, and the absolutely horrible replacement voice for Omar (the guy doesn't hold a candle to the original voice actor). Get the 2 disc version from Amazon with the uncensored Canadian version, you won't regret it.. the original movie, as intended.I think the problem with this movie, ever there ever really was a problem, is that it isn't a kids movie, nor is it particularly well written or clever to be much of an adult's animated feature, but it works well for teenagers (as I was one when I first saw it, many years ago on the CBC late night movie). Given the time the movie was made animation was still thought of as "kid's stuff", or simply dirty (Say Fritz the Cat), and this movie really falls into the grey area between those extremes. Poorly marketed, no doubt, but the American cable edit exists because of this failure to the realize the market.