Shadowgirls

Road to El Dorado was one of those overlooked gems of a movie that I have no idea why it wasn’t more popular. It’s beautifully animated, the voice acting is great, and even the Elton John music isn’t that annoying. I assumed that it was simply a case of bad marketing, since this was about the time that Disney came out with Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Titan AE bombed like a nuke in the theaters, effectively killing Fox Animation. But looking at Rotten Tomatoes today, it’s still not highly thought upon, which really baffles me. Admittedly, it’s not a perfect film, but it’s far better than Brother Bear or that horrible piece of crap, Shrek. It’s by far the best of the movies I’ve talked about here thus far, and the flaws the movie has are no better or worse than the flaws in other more popular films that came out later. But then I remember, these are critics saying that. They’re the same people who can’t figure out why Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was so financially successful, when they hated it so much. Anything that gives Ebert a headache is okay by me. (However, with the Road to El Dorado, I should point out that when you click on the RT Community tab on Rotten Tomatoes, the rating is like 64%. Usually you want to go by those numbers, since those are real people reviewing a movie and not a critic.) The Road to El Dorado is based around the old “Road to” movies that Bing Crosby and Bob Hope used to do. Basically about two fast-talking friends that through a series of events, end up on an adventure to a far away land, with a beautiful girl and danger is often involved. This movie is no exception. (You might have seen this trend done on Family Guy on more than a few occasions. I’m the farthest thing from an Family Guy fan, but they are usually their better episodes. That right there is about the nicest thing you‘ll hear me say about that show.)

Road to El Dorado is basically about two Spanish conmen named Tulio and Miguel, who bumble their way onboard Hernán Cortés’ ship bound for the New World. Along the way, they end up in a lifeboat with a horse (long story) and end up on a quest searching for the fabled city of El Dorado. (Akator to us Crystal Skull fans.) They find the place (accidentally of course) where thanks to the help of a curvaceous native woman named Chel (more on her later) they’re assumed to be gods. Being greedy conmen, this works wonderfully for the duo. I won’t spoil much more. Yeah, it’s about as historically accurate as 300 and the plot has been done before, but it’s like Stallone making action films: He may be in his 60s and the movies are pretty much all the same, but goddamn, I like watching him blow shit up.

The voice acting in this movie, particularly that of Kevin Kline (Tulio) and Kenneth Branagh (Miguel) is about some of the best I’ve heard in an animated movie. (I think personally, I would put The Incredibles above it, and maybe Ratatouille… But not many more.) Their rapport and the way they play off each other is classic comedy. I could fill this entire reviews of the back and forth dialogue these two have that just brings a smile to your face. One particular scene sticks out to me with the duo trapped in a rowboat (with the horse) out at sea, dying of thirst and starvation:

Miguel: Tulio, did you ever imagine it would end like this?
Tulio: [Pauses] The horse is a surprise.
Miguel: Any… regrets?
Tulio: Besides dying? Yeah. I never… had enough… Gold.

Now the animation is beautiful. It’s not exactly “Tarzan” levels of jaw-dropping, but it’s also well above “serviceable”. (For the record, I consider Disney’s Tarzan to have the best traditional animation of any movie ever. And for $150 million, it better have been!) What really shines out to me as an artist is the character designs… They actually look like they’re from South America as opposed to being just a bunch of white people colored tan. (Happens a lot more than you’d suspect. But that’s another issue for someone much smarter than me to discuss.) But one character of interest I want to bring up here: Chel.

Chel is interesting. Personality-wise, Chel is flawed. She’s as big of a con-artist as our two heroes. She’s seduces, she cheats, sets the boys against each other, AND she’s one of the heroes. She’s not a princess, and she’s probably what would be defined as an “anti-hero”. (I think Charon shares a lot of traits with her.) She’s voiced by Rosie Perez, who’s a good actress, so she kinda rounds out the dynamics of the two heroes. Visually though I believe is where she shines through. Check her character design to the right. What are those things she’s got? Oh, that‘s right! Curves! She’s not exactly a skinny twig, y’know? When you see a lot of female cartoon characters (both animated and comic), they far too often fall into a category that I myself may be guilty of, as well. Kind of a generic female body, where the major differences between them are either the height or the bust size. Sometimes not even that. Some of the Disney Princesses or female characters from the DC Animated Universe you could probably just swap their heads around and be none the wiser. (In fact, I believe the toys have proven this.) Chel obviously doesn’t have that issue. Now, if you type in “Chel” into Google, you’re going to find a bunch of fanart of her. In fact, you’ll find more fanart of her than official artwork. Some good, some not so good… And some NSFW, so don’t do it there. (In fact, it was a bit of a struggle to find even that image of her I posted.) The only other female cartoon characters I’ve only seen this happen before with is Kim Possible’s Shego and Rescue Rangers’ Gadget. (Maybe Raven too… Dunno.) And both of those are from very popular shows, as opposed from a ten year old movie that bombed at the box office. It’s kinda odd. But then again, fanboys and fangirls really shouldn’t be examined too deeply. Just accept what is and what is not.

Clocking in at about 89 minutes, the Road to El Dorado is actually a fun movie and I’m quite baffled why it’s not more popular. If you haven’t seen it, give it a shot. I think you’ll be pleased.

I’m gonna try something a little different for next week. It won’t be a movie review. I’ll go into that soon.

Years ago, when I was a young artist staying up late nights, drawing comics with the hopes and dreams of being the next big Image guy (it was the 90s) I would have the TV on playing in the background. It’s from this that I learned a great appreciation for stupid-awesome movies. (I seriously have an appreciation for the movie Beastmaster and it’ crappy sequel that would make most scratch their head.) Often what TNT would do is they would play a bunch of animated cartoons all night long on Saturday nights. Now this was before a time when anime was more commonly well know… Hell, not only was the term “anime” unknown to us, the term “Japanimation” wasn’t even known yet. The idea of a cartoon being made for something more than kids… Kinda… Blew us away. Stateside, we had a couple made here, like Fritz the Cat, Wizards or Rock and Rule, but they were usually more comedic in nature, or a Ralph Bakshi drug trip. (*rolls eyes*) To actually have a cartoon made, like we do today with the DC Direct to Video movies like Under the Red Hood and New Frontier… That would have blown our freakin’ minds. I don’t wanna say “You don’t know how good you have it now” but seriously… You don’t know how good you have it now! Now these movies TNT showed were of the more mature nature, consisting of the anime movies Robot Carnival (which I haven’t seen since and would love to) and Vampire Hunter D (which is another one I liked, and I did not care for “VHD: Bloodlust“ before someone asks.) And the centerpiece of the night lineup… Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal was one of those cartoons that before it came out on video in ‘96, everyone saw it in underground fashions. Watching midnight movies, bootleg VHS tapes recorded off Showtime a decade ago. It was like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, where it had this cult of personality to it, that very few films ever get, where you don’t watch it… You “experience” it. (Which yes, that does sound pretentious… And it might very well be.) It came out in 1981, so obviously I was too young to see it in the theaters. But I got to see it courtesy of some friends who taped it off cable. Obviously back then I loved it… I hadn’t seen anything like it before, as I was a year away from discovering anime (or re-discovering really) in the form of Bio-Booster Armor Guyver.

So let’s talk Heavy Metal. For those that do not know, Heavy Metal the movie is an 1981 animated anthology movie based upon the magazine with the same name. Heavy Metal was also popular in America for a while because it was really the only venue we had for reading European comics. It’s how most of us was exposed to Jean-Giraud Moebius. In many ways, Heavy Metal Magazine offer for comic readers the same thing that movie offered… Something different we never seen before. But this isn’t a review of the magazine. (Perhaps I should do that later?) A lot of the people involved in the production of Heavy Metal, were the same people who were involved with the creation of the movie Stripes and later Ghostbusters. (Which is the greatest movie of all time.) So, it’s kinda awkward really. Especially since… Heavy Metal isn’t really all that good.

It’s got an awesome soundtrack, to be honest. 30 years later, it still kicks all sorts of ass. It’s just… Well… The animation is really bad and the stories aren‘t much better. This movie is a perfect example of surviving on concept alone. To be fair, the animation done in Heavy Metal was done at a time when animation all over was suffering. (Some could say we’re back in that cycle right now.) Animation would basically be done on the extreme cheap, and it wouldn’t be until my boy Don Bluth broke away from Disney and struck out on his own with the Secret of Nimh and An American Tail that Disney and Warner Bros. would pull their heads out of their asses and raise the bar again with works like Ducktales, the Little Mermaid and Batman: the Animated Series. So I forgive Heavy Metal for it’s subpar animation… They were living to an expected standard. And the writing, like I mentioned hadn’t really been seen by domestic audiences before. In it’s theatrical run, it’s got mainly passive reviews, with people saying it’s fun, but mindless and adolescent. And it is. But hey, you’ve all see what I draw, so I’m not one to talk.

Now since I could write for hours on this movie and it’s individual components, so I’m going to give quick bullet reviews of each other stories told here. The movie it basically told by a giant evil green orb called the Loc-Nar, planning to kill this girl in a house, after he disintegrated her father, not long after he ejected from a space shuttle in a corvette. (It makes no further sense if you see what I’m talking about. Don’t worry. But it‘s all done to an awesome soundtrack!)

• Harry Canyon – Story of a cynical taxi driver in future New York getting involved in a case of murder and stolen artifacts or something or other. (Like I said: Not deep.) He gets tangled up with a woman, which he ends up sleeping and… Well, you ever see ‘The Fifth Element‘? It’s like that, but much, much shorter and much less Chris Tucker.

• Den – A generic barbarian story with what I think is the worst animation in the movie, which honestly would have bored the hell out of me if not for John Candy’s narration. Where else are you going to hear the phrase “There was no way I was gonna walk around this place with my dork hanging out!”? It’s a typical story, lots of boobs, lots of skin, monsters, stabbings and that “liquid lava lamp” effect that a lot of movies in the 70’s was fond of when they did alien skies.

• Captain Sternn – Sternn’s on trial for “12 counts of murder in the first degree, 14 counts of armed theft of Federation property, 22 counts of piracy in high space, 18 counts of fraud, 37 counts of rape and one movie violation.” And he pleads ‘not guilty‘.  Which leads to one of my favorite lines in the movie: “But the most we can hope for is to get you buried in secrecy so your grave don’t get violated!” Oh, if we all could get that!

• B-17, which is essentially a short story of a WWII bomber, that gets shot down by a zombie producing asteroid (Loc-Nar). He deals with zombies, but not before he lands on an island full of them. It’s okay, but not my favorite of the movie.

• So Beautiful and So Dangerous- THIS one is my favorite. It’s the most quotable, most fun, and I think has the best animation. I won’t spoil anything if you haven’t seen it. Basically, we’re introduced to the idea of robot/human woman sex (which is funnier than you think, because instead of showing it, they end up talking about Jewish weddings) and the movies great contribution to the world of science fiction: Plutonian Nyborg, in which we learn how to fly a starship stoned. “Look, man, if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to drive while I’m stoned. It’s like you know your perspective’s f*#ked so you just let your hands work the controls as if you were straight.”

• Taarna - *Sigh* Okay, when I was a young kid, this one was big with me, because it’s essentially every teenage boy’s fantasy. A post-apocalyptic future, where people blow crap up, shot and stab everyone, and the heroine is wearing a skimpy outfit that I’m not 100% sure how the physics of it even works. (See the cover.) It’s mainly done with rotoscoping, which was big about that time. (A method of animation, where you film an actor, and then you draw over them, using their outlines as a base. It’s time saving method, which I never thought looks all that great. In the comic book world, we call that “Greg Land-ing”.) This is the one everyone always remembers, and honestly, it’s the one I find the least impressive. Aeon Flux was more innovative and interesting. Also, better animated and better dialogue. (Ironic once you realize that Aeon Flux was mostly mute.) Honestly, it’s biggest legacy these days is providing the basis for an episode of South Park called “Major Boobage” which I think is better than Taarna.

To be honest, Heavy Metal is one of those movies that if you grew up with it or have a nostalgic connection to the animation from that period, you can live with it. But honestly, it doesn’t age all that well. But then even Disney movies from this time doesn’t age too well, either. But the soundtrack is pretty badass, and there’s enough in the film that holds up conceptually to make it fun still. Don’t expect ‘cutting edge’ though. I’d like to see something like this done again, and I might talk about the magazine in the future, as I have a friend who’s starting to do something similar now. (Asylum Ink. Check it out, check it outters.) They did make a sequel to Heavy Metal in 2000 called Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2, which can be summed up with one word… Crap.

Join me next week as I’ll talk about a favorite animated movie of mine about two Spanish con-artists, a horse and one of the most interesting female character designs I’ve ever seen.