Review: Rock and Rule (1983)

Up next on our animation retrospective is an odd little cult flick that comes from Canadian studio Nelvana—some might remember them for the children’s series they did down the line, though this isn’t quite aimed at the same market. Indeed, this comes from a very specific time and place where a project like this could even be conceived, back in the early eighties when North American animation could still take some risks. After all, have you ever heard of any other such film where an evil anthropomorphic Mick Jagger in a post-apocalyptic cyber-future tries to summon demons from hell via the power of pop-rock? Didn’t think so.

Like many, many pieces of media from this time, Rock and Rule starts off with nuclear war in its backstory—which apparently killed off humanity and left dogs and rats to mutate into essentially humans with snouts. Or in some cases just humans with slightly funny noses. It’s not something that really factors into the plot, and it shows how the focus of the film shifted over development as it geared to a different audience, which we’ll get into soon. Anyhoo, in this strange cyber-flavored future, an ageing rock star by the name of Mok (Don Francks), who looks like an evil cross between Jagger and Lou Reed, is furious that his last few concerts did not sell out completely, and so decides to destroy the world…because, you know, why not. To this end, he needs apparently a unique singing voice to summon a demon, and so in a small town stumbles on a band where the singer Angel (Susan Roman) has just the one he’s been looking for. 

If you think that all sounds utterly bizarre, well it’s because it is. It’s also played completely straight, yet Francks is utterly relishing his voice role, which combined with the extremely expressive animation on his character actually weirdly sells it.

Indeed, for such an odd film, the animation is actually top-notch for the time—everything’s fluid, the backgrounds are atmospheric and detailed, and there is definitely artistry at play here. We go from small towns dominated by strange cyber-gothic power plants to a demented future version of New York where even the Statue of Liberty has been overtaken by shanty towns—these kind of moody matte paintings are just my kind of thing, and I have to give full credit to Nelvana on the technical department here. 

Still looking better than Rod Stewart I guess?

Mok, as mentioned, is easily the highlight—besides Francks’ performance, there was an entire animation team for merely doing the character’s mouth, which gives him an expressiveness that easily outdoes even what Disney was doing at the time. You even have techniques at hand that simulate computer graphics by way of pure analogue—not like they were able to afford what was then very cutting-edge CGI. 

Oh sure it looks cool, but the music is just gonna be crappy Linkin Park remixes on repeat and the drinks will cost the GDP of a small nation for a thimble and...

As the title suggests, the soundtrack leans to the rock side, even if for some reason Earth, Wind, and Fire were splashed on the marketing for their contribution. You have a couple of ditties from Cheap Trick (which, eh, stick to Top Gun for them I say) and more notably Iggy Pop—the original orchestral score isn’t half bad though, and I do like Lou Reed’s little number.

But the biggest weakness of the film is a weird, undecided tone and audience—between the Satanic cyberpunk themes and the very shameless drug references, we also have much more childish pratfall characters that feel they’re for a totally different piece. Nelvana changed the tone of the film as they went on to aim more at teenagers, I guess, but that still leaves plenty of moments that leave me scratching my head. Also, how to put this—our actual protagonists kind of suck, with our ostensible leave being Omar (Greg Salata), a moody teen rocker who spends most of the film as an abrasive jerk, until the plot decides that now is a convenient moment for him to act heroic near the very end. 

As such, while Rock and Rule isn’t necessarily what I’d call a good and even experience…it’s oddly fascinating to watch, between the at times surreal and nightmarish-looking animated vistas and the random music interludes. This is something that could only come out of that early eighties MTV era, and while this isn’t certainly going to be for everyone, I do certainly think that those seeking that kind of unique oddball relic might just find this an interesting one.