HEAVY METAL
As in "Heavy, man, heavy." All the fantasies in this animated anthology concern a glowing green meteor that rolls around heaven all day, bringing troubles to all who touch it. These are variously comic, terrifying and erotic (if live actors were seen doing what drawn figures occasionally do here, the picture might have rated an X). But the animation is crude when it is not pretentious; the score, heavily laden with rock music, is positively bellicose; and the truncated tales told all betray their comicbook origins. As a result, one is constantly distanced from the movie. Perhaps it should be seen by people with something more potent than popcorn coursing through their veins. But even as a trip movie it cannot be compared to such classics as 2001 and Fantasia.
ZORRO, THE GAY BLADE
"Joostice for the pipples"—that is the cry of this satirical son of the old Zorro movies and TV show. It is also a fair sample of its mild—to put it mildly—humor. As the macho son of the legendary hero, again righting tyrannical rulers in old Los Angeles, George Hamilton relies heavily on the limited laugh potential of a thick accent. He also plays a twin who is gay, reluctantly substituting for his more virile brother when the latter breaks an ankle. The gay twin redesigns Zorro's basic-black costume in more flamboyant shades and informs the peons it is no shame to be poor, only to be badly dressed. The movie's spirit is inoffensively amiable, and Hamilton works agreeably to compensate for the fact that he was born too late to play straight a part that helped make Douglas Fairbanks and Tyrone Power great stars. But Zorro lacks the lunatic inventiveness of his previous spoof, Love at First Bite.
EYE OF THE NEEDLE
Deep-cover Nazi agent kicks off his covers and must try to pull them up over him again—at least until the submarine picks him up, and he can get back to Germany with the Allied invasion plans. Donald Sutherland plays the spy, code-named Needle, and Kale Nelligan is a miserably married woman, living with her embittered husband on a remote island off the Scottish coast. Naturally the Needle washes up there. Naturally they fall in love. Naturally, in the end, she must choose between love and patriotic duty. As a bestseller, this was a good read, but on film, the crimes the Needle commits on his escape route are so psychopathically gory that he is rendered loathsome. Sutherland's sometimes effective stillness, and some routine direction, are also offputting. On the other hand, Nelligan's anguish is quite touching; she grants the film's final passages a certain suspenseful, almost redeeming, grace.