The War was over.
The only survivors were street animals: dogs, cats and rats. From them, a new race of mutants evolved.
That was a long time ago…
Mok, a legendary superrocker has retired to Ohmtown. His computers work at deciphering an ancient code which will unlock a gateway to another dimension.
The only component he needs is a special voice…
So begins Rock & Rule, the epic sci-fi/fantasy tale of a punk rock dog man trying to save his girlfriend, who I think is a cat but is mostly a sex symbol, from an evil glam rock wizard who is trying to summon a demon in order to destroy the post-apocalyptic dystopian world in which they all live through the power of rock & roll. You know, that old chestnut.
Anyway, this was the debut film for Nelvana, a Canadian animation studio who you might know from Care Bears: The Movie and not much else filmwise, and what a debut it was amping up to be. A multi million dollar animated film that was emphatically not for children, which featured music from the badass bands of the time (in this case Debbie Harry, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop)? I mean sure, Heavy Metal, which Nelvana passed on to make this movie, had kind of already ascended into the pop culture consciousness on that ticket two years prior, but that only meant that the market was primed for that kind of material. The people loved Terminator so you give them Robocop, the people loved Indiana Jones so you give them Romancing the Stone. The people loved Heavy Metal, so you give them Rock & Rule. Recipe for success, right?
Well, no. Rock & Rule was actually a huge failure, both critically and commercially. So much so that it almost destroyed Nelvana, who only just managed to avoid bankruptcy by taking on loads of TV work. Which is a shame, seeing a studio taking a chance and putting out something relatively unique and having it shot down. It’s the kind of thing that gets you feeling jaded about the state of filmmaking, gets you wondering why you would even want to put money into an industry that rewards derivative shit and rewards free spirits, an industry that pushes remakes, reboots and cinematic universes onto its consumers like a pushy prom date with a Mickey Finn in his hand. Makes you wonder why you would ever want even get into making films at all, if all you had to look forward to was seeing your creative vision poked and prodded into oblivion by a committee of marketing drones. Especially when people continually buy into that same derivative crap over and over again, swallowing it down because they’re apparently too ignorant to even conceive of something better. Might as well not even get out of bed in the morning, if all you have to look forward to is the same depressing spiral into the garbage dump that creative expression in this world has become.
In the world’s defense, Rock & Rule is pretty crappy.
Maybe that’s not quite right. Rock & Rule is an average movie, one that is outshined by its peers; Heavy Metal, the works of Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH if you want to dig deep, in most respects. Rock & Rule isn’t as dark, it isn’t as sexy (more important that you would think on the internet), it isn’t as funny, the characters aren’t as interesting or likable, the soundtrack isn’t as good and the animation feels slower and less fluid. Which doesn’t make it outright bad, in fact it’s probably even with Ralph Bakshi’s American Pop to me, which was another animated film that heavily featured music from around that same year, but it’s not all that exceptional either. Aside from some of the background art, which actually does look quite impressive, there’s nothing about Rock & Rule that really stirs the viewer to any reaction beyond ‘yeah, it was fine’. For a movie called Rock & Rule, there’s far less rocking than you’d expect. Not much ruling either, to be honest.
If you’re a big animation fan, as I am, then you might be interested in Rock & Rule as a piece of movie history that doesn't have a Disney logo stamped on it. If you’re interested in Heavy Metal and you’re looking for some twisted cartoons to scratch that itch, then you might be interested in Rock & Rule. If neither of those things apply to you though, then you might be able to give this one a pass. And if someone offers you a glowing ball of pink light, just say no. It’s just not worth it.
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