Rating: **1/2
Iron Sky is
a science fiction movie where in events transpired are taken from real life
inspirations that are so implausible, the sheer notion of it is absolutely
laughable: a Sarah Palin presidency. Kidding aside, what we have here is a film
that helped set the mould for the whole crowd-sourcing phenomenon; millions of
dollars raised from fans the world over based on the ludicrous, but oh-so-camp
ready premise that in 1945 Nazis escaped from the Earth and set up a base on
the moon where they silently wait to strike back.
But Iron Sky and its filmmakers are
not content to tell a simple story of Nazis on the moon, they seemed to want to
build a political satire in the vein of Dr. Strangelove around the
absurdist idea too. Unfortunately though, the notion seems a bit out of date.
The prospect of a Sarah Palin presidency is less and less likely with each year
since her failed vice-presidency bid, and with each moronic social media
release of Fox News appearance.
The film starts with an American mission to
the moon, and an attempt by the erstwhile President Palin (Stephanie Paul) to
reignite the American spirit of accomplishment and industriousness. Astronaut
James Washington (Christopher Kirby) soon discovers the Nazi settlement during
his moon walk and is taken prisoner by the Third Reich. With Washington’s smart
phone, the Nazi scientists find the Rosetta stone they need to launch their war
machines against the Earth. Revenge has come after 73 years.
Naturally, the whole thing ends up in a
giant space battle as the warships of the Earth, including the American-made,
improbably named USS George W. Bush, battling the Nazi’s crazy
zeppelin/rocket ship concoctions in Earth orbit. For what is essentially an
independent movie, Iron Sky boasts some impressive effects work, but
since George Lucas introduced the idea of airplane dog fights in space in ’77,
it’s a field well hoed. Still, the effects artists behind Iron Sky deserve
a pat on the back for doing so much with so little.
As for the film itself, I appreciate that
the filmmakers going full Strangelove with the ending, but the movie’s
humour is rather hit and miss. I was one of the few in the theatre to get the
subtle reference to Downfall, and all the various memes that have been
based upon it, and Peta Sergeant really owns that scene. Julia Dietze is good
as Renate Richter, the Nazi idealist that has some bizarrely sunny ideas about
the National Socialist Party, and Dietze really throws herself in the part. And
Udo Kier, as the head of the Moon Nazis, is appropriately over the top with the
scenery chewing.
The film itself though struggles between
being a small scale blockbuster-like romp and a tongue-in-cheek political
commentary. Putting those two things together is like trying to combine candy
and broccoli, and although I think some clever person could probably do it in
an effective way, the creators of Iron Sky are not them. It’s a noble
experiment, and it was committed to with zest and flare, but Iron Sky just
can’t lift off and be more than that “Nazis on the Moon” movie. And that’s
really a shame.
