Iron Sky, with Julia Dietze, Peta Sergeant, Goto Otto & Christopher Kirby. Timo Vuorensola, director. I had run into some website a couple of years ago, perhaps on FB, when this movie was in the planning & they’d had some production designs & sketches. The layout looked interesting & the plot seemed promising. The idea that I saw was that it was to be an ironic comedy & the potential seemed positive. So… Yes, I’ve had this film in the back of my mind for a while with reminders to watch for its release. You’ll have noticed that I like to scope things out sometimes & wait for it, like a crocodile under the river bank waiting for a good meal to saunter past. Can you imagine the disappointment & dismay I felt when this turned out to be a lame political satire & a joke? Who is the butt of this joke, really? The film makers.
The premise, at the end of World War II a refugees in a secret Nazi space program left the Earth to take up residence on the dark side of the Moon, waiting for vengeance &/or a return to the planet in some sort of triumph – seemed like a good one, with a touch of steam punk, gray metal & melodrama fueling a comedic clash of civilizations. Modern Earth & throwback Nazi’s with lots of steam punk gear, giant chains & metal.
Udo Kier is featured in this movie & his ability to say nothing with wide-eyes served him well. He’s been around for a long, long time. A European fixture. However; one could have directed this bastion of the past’s Euro velvet underground to move around a bit & say something other than half-baked cameo lines. He barely moves his head, but he does sit & stand a little bit.
The CGI was actually fantastic. A lot of visual trickery to make up for a low-budget, if it’s well done, can make the day – if everything else falls into place. Which it didn’t.
I love political satire. It’s a tradition of Western Culture & a revered right of its inhabitants; but a cheap shot is a cheat & taking aim at dead horses accomplishes nothing. The satire in this film targeted the U.S. In order for satire to work it has to be a truth telling. Not from a foreign or uninvolved perspective or an ignorant viewpoint. The irony, conveyed by the film, wasn’t lost on me. I got it. I understood. I also saw it for what it was. Ultra liberal, European hogwash. I’m sure someone Germanic thought it was funny & I know for a fact that there is an audience for anti-American vitriol (in this form of exaggerated reality & more than a touch of out & out lies). Maybe it’ll make a modest profit in some back alley theater in a run down section of Berlin. I hope so, for its own investment.
The film isn’t going to be understood entirely by American audiences but there will be a few who nod their heads in agreement between the over-drama & marching Nazi thugs. Parroting anti-U.S. sentiment, from another land.
The performances by the actors (other than Kier) were adequate & stuck (somewhat) to normal comedic formulas, already successful. Everywhere. Droning on about nothing for a while, then emphasizing something that is supposed to click into a good joke or line. Calling this a B-movie would be flattery.
All in all, what could have been a great & ironic comedy – coupled with superb CGI & imagery – fell flat. I actually only laughed once & smiled briefly at an actor that was supposed to be playing some sort of a Sarah Palin-like U.S. president, surrounded by evil conservatives, not too different than the dead old Nazis.
Water under the bridge isn’t funny & neither is this film. Nobody likes a bad pun. No body of any worth, that is.
Avoid this movie, unless you’re a rabid communist, sitting in a cafe, pretending to be a revolutionary from a hundred years in the past.
