Rock & Rule (1983)

Simply A Masterpiece

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Nelvana was a Canadian animation powerhouse in the 1980's, producing the Boba Fett cartoon in the Star Wars Holiday Special, Droids, Ewoks and even the live action Whoopi Goldberg movie Burglar. Along the way, Nelvana's franchises have been shown on over 360 television stations in more 180 countries, in approximately 50 languages. But their first major film was Rock and Rule.Based heavily on their earlier animated film The Devil and Daniel Mouse, the film took five years to create and used up all of the studio's resources thanks to its $8 million dollar budget. MGM never promoted the film and it quickly faded from the U.S. box office. If Nelvana hadn't started working in kid-friendly TV, they would have gone out of business.In 1983, a nuclear war destroys the human race and mutated street animals populate the Earth.Mok Swagger is a legendary rock musician (voiced by Don Francks, with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop singing his songs) who is hunting for a special voice that will allow him to release a demon. Why? Well, as he's lost his fame, he just wants to set the world on fire.Meanwhile, in a nightclub in Mok's hometown, Ohmtown, Omar (Paul Le Mat voiced him with Robin Zander from Cheap Trick singing), Angel (Susan Roman voice, Debbie Harry singing), Dizzy and Stretch play a show in a small bar. Mok hears Angel sing and knows that he has finally found the voice that he's been looking for.Mok invites the band to his mansion outside of town, drugging the band and escaping with Angel. Taking her to Nuke York, he stages a magic ritual as a rock concert, we learn that only one voice, one heart and one song can stop the demon. Yet the evil rock star convinces Omar that Angel is willingly with him before capturing and torturing the band.Will Omar get it together? Will Mok unleash a demon on the world? Will we get to hear songs by Cheap Trick, Earth Wind & Fire, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry? Yes. Maybe. Yes.This isn't a cartoon for kids. It's packed with drugs, devil worship, some sex and swearing (there was more before MCA demanded cuts). They pretty much dumped the film with only a Night Flight mention and a Marvel tie-in comic. I remembered waiting for the film to come out and it never did.The book is really gorgeous because instead of original art being created for the comic, it's a fumetti style book that takes cel art and creates comic book layouts from it.This film is like an 80's rock and roll version of The Apple. There's a musical couple that is torn apart by evil big business, but way less camel toe - ironic as many of the creatures in the film look like humanoid dromedaries.The animation is pretty interesting as well, looking Bakshi-like (indeed, Ralph Bakshi is often credited as the director of this, but Clive A. Smith in the true person behind the film). Even though production started as early as 1978, it really reflects the MTV style of the 80's. It compares favorably with a more well-known animated film from Canada, Heavy Metal.Rock and Rule played on HBO and Showtime in the U.S., never showing in theaters. It wasn't released officially on video until 2005 and a new blu-ray from Unearthed Films was released in 2010.

This movie was haunting me for quite some time, I remember seeing this as a kid and then got excited when it was coming to video.A great story of a future filled with mutant animals, A young group is trying to make it as a band and we enter the protagonist who shows interest and with sinister intent great real life bands signers of the 80's were hired to record original songs for this Canadian movie. I also bought the high definition video as well, shows how much I love this movie. It was a faster find than most other movies I looked up. And a Canadian break out project. I recommend it as well. There are a bit tense scenes though.

Rock and rule also known as the ring of power in the UK is a 1983 Canadian animated film created by the Nelvana company. Legend has it that Nelvana was approached to create a segment for Heavy Metal but declined instead opting to create their own feature length film. Legend also has it that it failed so epically that the studio almost went bankrupt because of it. So lets take a look at Rock and Rule.We are introduced firstly to our villain Mok, An egotistical rock star who looks and acts like the result of a hot night of passionate love making between Mick Jagger and David Bowie. The Plot exposition computer explains that he is seeking something called the Armageddon key, and that he will need a voice to open a gateway to another dimension.We cut into Ohmtown and are introduced to our protagonists, members of a smalltime band playing gigs at a open mike night. Its around this point in the movie you might be asking yourself why everyone looks like rejects from the goofy movie, iunno, anyway there's the vocal duo of Omar, Angel backed up by the musical accompaniment of Dizzy and Stretch.Without doing a scene by scene analysis Mok invites the band to his mansion to discuss a record contract, but we quickly learn where his interests lie when he instead kidnaps angel and its up to Omar and the gang to pursue mok to Nuke York to rescue her.This film seems very confused as to who they are aiming for, it has a very child friendly Disney-esque look but with adult content such as drug abuse, some brief nudity and adult language mixed in.The villain Mok also seems seriously confused about his role, hes extremely menacing in some pretty scary ways but he has this super campy "ohhh I'm the villain" song and he goes from looking like a stereotypical 80s rock star to lookin like a F***in California raisin on extacy somewhere along the way.animation is very good with lots of fluid movements and eyecandy for the viewer, compared to other animation of the time it comes out quite well. Its like the flipper baby result of a passionate night of love making between Heavy Metal and Disney which seem like polar opposites but in this case it actually works in this films favor.The high points of this film are definitely the musical scenes with awesome soundtrack contributions from greats like cheap trick, Debbie Harry and Lou Reed and earth wind and fire. As mentioned before this film was a huge flop making only 30 grand of its 8 million dollar budget according to IMDb, did it deserve better? I think so. While not quite on the level of classics like heavy metal, I find it to be an enjoyable film worth bringing up over 30 years later.So that's my short look at Rock & Rule, if you would like to see the video version of the review it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzRnHnFTOo

Yes, I have seen both this movie and the other animation movie "Heavy Metal", but I have never seen either uncut. So I can not really say which I like more. I liked this one because the story was a bit easier to follow, but that could be because "Heavy Metal" is so cut up on the television cut that at times some of the stories are skipping from scene to a completely different scene. Then again "Rock and Rule" seems a bit to tame compared to "Heavy Metal", but once again that could be because the more graphic scenes were cut from the version of the film I saw. The story in this one has this sort of aging rocker using rock and roll to basically summon a demon that delights in killing and such. He does the summoning by using a girl singer that he basically kidnaps. About all there is to it, but it works well. The music as was the case in "Heavy Metal" was very good and rocked suffice to say. One day I wish to see both of these films uncut so then I can give a more accurate review to both and perhaps decide which if any is superior to the other.