Review of Iron Sky (2012) by Halfwelshman — 18 Sep 2012

Iron Sky has one of the great all-time exploitation movie premises. There's no point beating about the bush, it's about space Nazis. Apparently, after they lost WWII, the Reich retreated to the moon, but feel the time is right for world domination 67 years later.

For a film of its type, it works more often than not, though the setup is clunky even by B-movie standards, and the film as a whole is a bit too drawn out. There are a few satisfyingly surreal and tongue-in-cheek gags, the best of which mocks contemporary world politics (with a particularly cruel, but hilarious Sarah Palin caricature performed pitch-perfectly by Stephanie Paul) and another which involves two Nazi soldiers passionately disagreeing with the appeal of 21st century pornography.

Despite these memorable moments and sporting some rather impressive visual effects for an independent Finnish film, Iron Sky often, sometimes fatefully, plays it far too straight-faced. The film's marketing campaign got it right by really embracing how ridiculous it is, and the film would probably have benefited from being similar in tone to the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse project from a few years ago - a parody, but a knowing, high-quality homage rather than an outright spoof that has the potential to quickly run out of steam.

At the end of the day, though there's a lot to like in Iron Sky, and though you will probably laugh at some point, it needs to be far funnier to make the whole concept work.