ROCK & RULE (1983) REVIEW

I have a great fondness for 2D animation as i was brought up with Disney films and Don Bluth movies, but not until my mid teens did i discover animation aimed at a more adult audience, im not talking Hentai but films such as HEAVY METAL and STARCHASER, and one film that id heard very little about but was intrigued by what id heard was a film called ROCK & RULE, an animated musical set to a soundtrack of rock from artists such as Blondie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. The film got a remastered DVD about five years ago and i was able to pick up a copy. The film has sat on my shelves for three years of those five and only now have i managed to finally watch the entire film...

ROCK & RULE is a bit of a milestone in animated features, a completely independently produced film from Canadian animation studios NELVANA, who produced alot of animated kids shows from the Care Bears to Droids and The Ewoks shows for the Star Wars Franchise. The Film had very little promotion in the U.S and quickly sank at the box office and pretty much disappeared. In 1984 MGM released the film on VHS and in 1986 released it on Laserdisc both of which went OOP very quickly, and for 19 years the film was only available from Nelvana themselves who would charge $80 to create a VHS of the film. Many Bootlegs were around that stated the film was by Ralph Bakshi. So 2005 and the film is finally released in a brilliant re-master on a single and double DVD set. This is how i saw the film....

THE PLOT:

The following synopsis is from the back of the DVD cover....

Angel, a member of a punk rock band in the apocalyptic future is kidnapped by Mok, a legendary super rocker obsessed with an evil experiment. Mok plans to use Angel's voice to summon a demon from another dimension. Omar, the band leader and the rest of the band follow Mok to Nuke York in an attempt to rescue her and then the ultimate battle of good vs evil can begin....

oh yeah i forgot, they're also mutant mice/rats...

The Idea is very interesting, pitting mutant rodents against each other all to a kick ass rock soundtrack, and the film delivers on every count. The plot is pretty much standard as evil man want demon and must use female to summon demon while potential love interest attempts to save said female, but ROCK&RULE does it in a very original way. Ive seen many animated films and although most have the the theme of love running through them, this film seems to have more heart than the rest.

The Animation:

The animation on this is fucking awesome, from the movements of the characters to the brilliantly painted landscaped and backgrounds and to the musical interludes. It was an interesting choice to make all the characters mice and rats and it pretty obvious the model for Angel was Debbie Harry, you can see this by looking at the above photo.

The Character designs are good for the most part, as usual you have the main male character who is meant to be a good looking rebel, then you have the rest of the band such as the gangly dufus who looks a bit like goofy and the smart one who's a little tubby.
Then you have Mok's hench men, i'm not sure if they're giant mice or pigs but they have a great design, alot going on up top and small legs and they move around on roller skates.

The only character i had a problem with was Mok, he was a cross between David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger but his face looked like fucking Motherbrain from Captain N: The Games master. This was quite off putting as his look was completely different to the rest of the characters...

MOTHERBRAIN

MOK

THE VOICE CAST:

The Voice cast of the film is pretty good. Paul La Mat (Lonesome Dove) is great as Omar. Angel is voiced by Susan Roman who has voiced a lot of Anime and appeared vocally in Heavy Metal. Mok is voiced by Don Francks from the original horror film My Bloody Valentine, his voice is crazy, very gravelly and and at time quite chilling, although at times he did sound a bit like a less camp Harvey Fierstein. 

THE SOUNDTRACK

WOW what a soundtrack it is. Not only are treated to Iggy, Blondie and Reed, we're also thrown Cheap Trick and Earth, Wind and Fire. All The songs were written specially for the film and the only downfall is that a soundtrack album does not exist.

This is the track listing....

• Deborah Harry - "Angel's Song"
• Deborah Harry - "Invocation Song"
• Deborah Harry - "Send Love Through"
• Cheap Trick - "Born to Raise Hell"
• Cheap Trick - "I'm the Man"
• Cheap Trick - "Ohm Sweet Ohm"
• Lou Reed - "My Name is Mok"
• Lou Reed - "Triumph"
• Earth Wind & Fire - "Dance Dance Dance"
• Melleny Brown - "Hot Dogs and Sushi"
• Iggy Pop - "Pain & Suffering"

Angel's singing voice is provided by Debbie Harry, Omar's and Mok's by Lou Reed. 

MY VERDICT

The film truly is an astonishing piece of Animation and although coming two years after HEAVY METAL, which used alot of different styles of 2d animation, R&R used the same style for the full 77 minute runtime. 

There seems to be a lack of adult aimed animation in the west these days and instead we have to look to the east, to Japan and it's Anime/Manga stuff. The 80s was a great time for cinema as technology was advancing and people were taking more chances, this is the kind of film that disney would make if they had balls and the kind of animated movie that Ralph Bakshi did make and was vilified for it. Another animator that took some chances was Don Bluth, he took the Disney style and made it his own with films such as An American Tale and Titan A.E. We just don't get hand drawn animated films anymore, the exception being the recent Princess and The Frog from Disney who only made it because Pixar head John Lassetter is in charge of its animation department now. So i say fight the power and get drawing again. 

Enough of my rants about Animated films, what's my verdict on this one....fucking brilliant, an entertaining, rock and roll sci-fi film that should never have been kept from us of nearly 20 years and one that im going to revisit often....

FILM: 9/10

Here's some more stills from the film....