Metal Hurlant Chronicles

This TV show is a kind of punk version of the 50s classic "Twilight Zone". The stories told are out of short stories found into "Métal Hurlant", a very important comics and science fiction magazine published between 1975 and 1987 (and also in the US under the name of "Heavy Metal"), where it was possible to read people like Druillet, Moebius, Wrightson or Corben. Two animated movies have been done : Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000. The "Metal Hurlant Chronicles" is made of short episodes : stories and actors are never the same ones. The cast is quite surprising, with American and french actors. There are only six episodes (making seven stories, as one episode is sliced in two different stories) and the result is quite fair, even if the special effects can seem a little cheesy, but it might be on purpose, as it is naive and funny science-fiction.

When you watch bad science fiction, it can be nearly as mesmerizing as watching excellent science fiction. I've probably watched 'judge dread' as many times as I have 'the man from earth', or 'chronicles of Riddick' as many times as 'the color of magic', for very different reasons obviously. The problem that I am left with in the show, is that it isn't entirely bad. The bad parts are funny, like the line "2000 light years away, that's at the end of the universe." Wait, what? It is kind of disturbing that the writers thought that was true. or did they? are they intentionally writing bad dialogue to be funny? I'm not sure. But, make no mistake, the writing is terrible, intentionally, or not, which if you are in the mood, is actually bad enough to be funny. Some people are saying the rest of it is bad, and I disagree. Makeup, graphics, staging, and cgi are all done fairly well, there are points where you can see they clearly didn't have the money to make it perfect, but this isn't the hobbit or star wars, it is a low budget TV miniseries. All of the aforementioned areas seem authentic, and well done, if not perfect. Where it gets weird is that I almost feel bad for the actors. You see moments where acting talent comes through, and no matter how talented you are, you can't make dialogue that isn't researched or thought out, which often reads like stage directions, into Shakespeare, you just can't. Normally in bad scifi you get terrible actors like vin diesel in chronicles of Riddick, or Stallone in judge dread, but some of the actors here actually have some level of talent, detracting from the humor of it. When you hear Vin Diesel respond to the line 'how do you get eyes like that?' with 'you've got to kill a lot of people' it is almost transcendently terrible. When you hear Joe Flannigan of stargate atlantis fame say that it is 2000 light years to the end of the universe, that just breaks your heart a little. If you are looking for advice on whether to watch of not, I'd say give it a go for a good laugh. I for one will probably keep watching for that reason.

SYFY is showing Metal Hurlant Chronicles = Heavy Metal ( yes, the French mag ) anthology stories. Production, acting, script all on par with standard SYFY channel fare like "Sharknado". I figured it would look cheap, that's not an issue. Sure, the acting is weak, but with ads, it's only 18 minutes of story.

Come on – they can't tell a story that holds together for a mere 18 minutes? No, they can't. ONE stupid twist ending is okay. TWO is pushing it for a 12 episode series. Doing that same "fooled you" trick ending in every god-damned story is just ridiculous. These are not stories – they are only set-ups and punch lines.

This doesn't even come close to storytelling, it's more like random juxtaposition of sci-fi & fantasy elements. The Twilight Zone did that, but they had a moral and Serling knew how to write a play in 3 acts.

Not happening with Metal Hurlant.

When a cheap looking Sci-Fi show comes around that I never heard of, I immediately fear the worst. Mutant Hurlant Chronicles came along- toting a big cast with recognizable names like Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite) Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) Michael Biehn (Aliens) and John Rhys-Davies (Raiders Of The Lost Ark) I thought there might be a chance that it could be good. I was wrong. Based on the popular comic of the 80's, Heavy Metal, each episode is it's own story with a different cast that takes place on a different planet. This idea I love because it gives the viewer a new story every episode, the only problem is that almost every episode sucks. Bad writing, acting and special effects make it seem like something that would air after Sharknado on Syfy. (Fitting considering it's the same network.) Another problem is how they end each episode, there always has to be some type of M. Night Shyamaian twist that more often than not you see coming a mile away. One positive thing I can say about the show is that it looks great on Blu-ray.

My wife and I tore through these episodes pretty quickly. They were quite enjoyable and we made a game of trying to guess the "twist" endings. Most of the time, the twists had twists! In one episode, the twist was there wasn't a twist! Being a half-hour show also also eliminated the padding that you would have gotten with hour-long episodes. I also thought the series had pretty good special effects for a low budget effort. It succeeded in capturing the flavor of Heavy Metal magazine and it looked quite different than anything else on TV. I hope SyFi or some other network picks it up. It's great news that the producers are making a second season.