A NEW WORLD FOR 'HEAVY METAL'.

Byline: Rene Rodriquez Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Reissuing newly polished movie classics to theaters has become a fashionable trend. In the last couple of years, "The Wild Bunch," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago" and "El Cid" all have enjoyed big-screen revivals.

Now, you can add 1981's "Heavy Metal" to that list. The raunchy sci-fi cartoon, which returns to theaters nationwide on Friday with a digitally restored soundtrack, is also a classic - of sorts.

"Heavy Metal" was the last R-rated animated feature released by a major studio in the United States. The movie marked the passing of the adult cartoon, a genre made up of films like Ralph Bakshi's "Fritz the Cat" (1972) and "American Pop" (1980), the "Fantasia" spoof "Allegro Non Troppo" (1977), and the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" (1968) - animated films meant only for grown-ups, tackling stories and subject matter that either wasn't of interest to young people or simply wasn't suitable for them.

"Studios aren't willing to do these kind of pictures anymore," said "Heavy Metal" producer Ivan Reitman, who is currently directing "Space Jam," a feature film mixing live-action and animation that will team basketball great Michael Jordan and comic actor Bill Murray opposite Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. "It has become too expensive, and they don't want to take a chance on something that's not rated G or PG, in order to have the widest audience possible."

For years, cartoons exhibited in theaters always had grown-ups in mind: Even the "Popeye" and "Betty Boop" featurettes and Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes shorts of the 1930s and '40s, though loved by children, leavened their stories and dialogue with social commentary and adult-sized wit.

Today, animation in the United States is the sole domain of Walt Disney blockbusters and their imitators - movies whose mix of solid storytelling and sumptuous artistry appeals equally to all ages, but whose subject matter is always aimed at a young audience.

Like everything else in Hollywood, the change of direction was rooted in money. Unlike Japan, where animation remains a viable medium for telling mature stories, adult American audiences are less likely to take a chance on a cartoon. Besides, a children's movie offers an infinitely greater number of merchandising possibilities (the toys! the video games! the fast-food sandwich wrappers!).

"Heavy Metal" cost $9 million and employed more than 1,000 artists, but it was only a modest success, and studios today aren't willing to go through the trouble without the guarantee of a fatter payoff. Even anti-establishment artists like Bakshi have been forced to dull their edge: Bakshi's last movie, 1992's "Cool World," was a failed attempt to recapture the bawdiness of his earlier work, hampered by a constraining PG-13 rating.

So why re-release "Heavy Metal" now? The magazine's popularity has waned considerably since its heyday; once a monthly, it now only publishes four times a year. The film's soundtrack, a double-album catalog of pop acts like Sammy Hagar, Cheap Trick and Journey, sold respectably at the time of its release (it spent 13 weeks in the top 40), but is hardly the stuff played on MTV today.

And "Heavy Metal" was never a critical darling, either. Much like a comic book, the movie is a compendium of eight short stories, all drawn in varying styles, mixing coke-sniffing aliens and lascivious androids with sword-wielding amazons and undead monsters. It all unfolds with plenty of animated graphic sex and gore, underscored by a thumping hard-rock soundtrack.

But, ironically, the movie may be poised to receive a more enthusiastic reception in 1996 than it did in 1981. "Heavy Metal" has never been released on home video (a victim of a copyright law problem with the soundtrack's musical artists), so it has remained a perpetual attraction at midnight theatrical showings and has a devoted cult following. It's the single most active title in Columbia Pictures' entire theatrical print library.

Its style of sketchy, pop-art flavored animation and mix of horror, low-brow comedy and high fantasy are also much more prevalent today: MTV currently airs several animated shows that fit right in with the movie's sensibilities (including the sci-fi series "Aeon Flux," which bears strong" Heavy Metal" influences).

Also in the movie's favor is the burgeoning popularity of Japanese animation, which shares "Heavy Metal's" penchant for graphic violence and nudity. Since the release of "Akira" in 1989 in the United States, the form has become so popular that larger video stores have devoted stand-alone sections for Japanese 'toons.

THE FACTS

The film: "Heavy Metal" (R; sex, nudity, violence).

The stars: Featuring the voices of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy and Harold Ramis. Songs by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Journey and Stevie Nicks.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Gerald Potterton. Produced by Ivan Reitman. Rereleased by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 30 minutes.

Playing: Starting Friday at selected theaters.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Photo "Heavy Metal," 1981's animated take on the adult cartoon magazine, is being re-released Friday with a digitally restored soundtrack.