Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
What’s on the dark side of the moon? Well for the longest time we had no real clue because we can’t see it. The moon orbits in a way, thanks to tidal influence, that keeps one side of it always facing the Earth and that’s your astrology lesson for the day. The Russians took a few pictures of the dark side a few years back but who can really trust the Russians? This mystery of what is on the Dark Side of the Moon is now solved thanks to director Timo Vuorensola and his film ‘Iron Sky’. What’s on the dark side of the moon? Freaking Nazi’s. I should’ve known.
It’s the year 2018 and the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul), who looks an awful lot like Sarah Palin, even though she has a southern accent and Sarah Palin is from Alaska, figures it would help her reelection bid if she sent somebody to the moon with one of these astronauts being Black. ‘Black to the Moon’ would be her slogan. How this is going to help her win an election is beyond me but I’m no campaign strategist, so what would I know?
Problem is that when these astronauts make it to the moon they find it’s already inhabited. By Nazis. We’re not going to worry too much about the other astronaut but the Black astronaut, James Washington (Christopher Kirby), is captured and brought back to the Space Stalag where he causes quite a stir since none of these Nazi’s has ever seen a Black guy before. The main concern however is that it looks like the Earth is going to invade and that’s troublesome for Der Furher Wolfgang (Udo Kier) and his right hand man Klaus Adler (Gotz Otto). More so Klaus than Wolfgang since Klaus is the warhawk of the crew and Wolfgang is kind of a pacifist, at least as far as Nazi’s go. Kirby has also made the acquaintance of the absolutely lovely nazi-ette Renate Richter (Julie Dietze) who just wants to teach her classes and spread the love and joy that is the National Socialist Party.
The problem with this invasion is the Mad Scientist Dr. Richter (Tilo Puckner) just doesn’t have the computing power to make the ships do what they need to do, until he spies Washington’s hi-tech smartphone. Problem solved. Time for Adler to make a quick trip to earth to grab more cell phones, get those warships battle ready and invade earth. Washington is also coming along since he knows the lay of the land and since he’s been reengineered to be a white Nazi. Which could be redundant. I’m not sure.
Regardless, Adler has a plan. Marry Renate and make lots of little Aryans, but mainly depose the weak Wolfgang and take his place as ruler of the Fourth Reich and ultimately Ruler of the Earth. Now as Klaus Adler enacts his plan a lot stuff is going on such as the President’s revised campaign plan, the prez’s slutty, profane campaign manager (Peta Sergeant) who Klaus has been kicking it with a bit, the eventual invasion… which was pretty spectacular to be honest with you… The U.N’s response to this invasion, Renate becoming disillusioned after seeing the true Nazi vision and Renate and Washington joining forces to help save Earth and hopefully change Washington back into a Black guy. Political parody shall ensue.
To begin with a summarization, ‘Iron Sky’ is visually stunning, wildly erratic, completely nonsensical politic-socio parody. Anybody who follows the movie mill relatively closely knows that ‘Iron Sky’ has been kicking around in some form for years as Team Iron Sky begged, borrowed and stole to try to get the funding for their little movie and with that knowledge, transferred to what we saw on screen, the effort was a smashing success. The movie looks great, the special effects are fantastic, and anything in regards to the visual representation of this film was equal to any mega-budgeted movie that we’ve recently seen. Bravo.
Of course a great looking movie doesn’t necessarily make for a great movie and ‘Iron Sky’ certainly wasn’t a great movie. Going in, and seeing the trailers, I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for. I was assuming I was getting a fairly standard ‘Bad Nazi’ movie only this time the Nazi’s had space dirigibles. A political comedy spoof… I wasn’t quite ready for. We’re completely okay with what it was, I just wasn’t expecting it. But now that we know it’s a comedy, ‘Iron Sky’ has the burden of being funny, and while it had its moments, no doubt, it was more of a miss comedy than a hit comedy. We mention the movie was wildly erratic because of all the genres that Vuorensola and his team were dipping into. It is a traditional space opera at some points, it’s a wacky comedy, it’s a bit of a love story, it’s a political parody and it’s a social drama. I’m going to guess this is what happens when you’ve written a script with a great concept, that being Nazi’s on the moon, don’t have any money to make your movie so you just keep writing and adding stuff in until you end up getting that money.
All that being said, and believe me when I tell you that this movie was all over the freaking place, we still had some fun with ‘Iron Sky’. Christopher Kirby was consistently funny, Julia Dietze is really easy to look at, some of the political / social stuff was biting and clever and as pointed out by many, the movie is a visual feast.
A little more focus probably would’ve made ‘Iron Sky’ a better movie, but Timo Vuorensola has a definite style which has made this movie something I don’t think anybody should seriously consider passing up. Here’s hoping funding comes quicker for the next film, thus limiting the time for ambitious screenwriters to add in ‘stuff’.
