REVIEW: Iron Sky

Once upon a time an obscure assortment of production companies decided to team up and make a film. It would be a Finnish-German-Australian effort, on a modest budget of around £6 million and receive only a very limited release (making it quite hard to find in cinemas). These facts alone conspired against the movie from the word go: but one point markedly in its favour was the internet fan-following which had emerged after the first trailers. Why the hype? Because this film was about Space-Nazis, on the Moon.

Space Nazis, on the Moon

For those of you who don’t live in cyberspace, the setup is something like this: in 1945 the Nazis shipped a bunch of hard-line supporters to the dark side of the moon to lie in wait for the time to capture the earth. In 2018, the plan is put into action and all hell breaks loose as the nutty fascists return: guns blazing. In broad terms it’s a sci-fi action movie with its tongue wedged solidly in its cheek and the humour turned up to eleven. This was largely all I knew going into the film, and first impressions held nicely to this formula; with a good level of dark-ish humour from the word go.

One criticism levelled at the film from all fields is that the plot doesn’t make sense. I guess I need to acknowledge that straightaway and agree wholeheartedly. This is mostly because (as a reminder) this film is about SPACE NAZIS. Quite what critics were expecting I’m not sure. I take it as read in this review that this film was never going to make sense, and that its merits lie in the execution of its totally mental premise.

To that end, I was caught completely off guard. I’ve mentioned that the laughs were plentiful: but I was never prepared for exactly how plentiful. The entire film is extremely, painfully funny. Putting on my hipster glasses I would add crucially that this isn’t silly Hollywood rom-com situational humour. This is dark, cutting and incredibly clever humour with some surprisingly deep political undercurrents. Fans of international politics will find a lot to enjoy (particularly from President Honestly-Not-Sarah-Palin); but for those who care little for such things, there’s an incredibly rich variety of jokes including a large number of references to other films and even internet videos. This is complex, well written and immensely enjoyable stuff.

A lot of reviewers have criticised this film roundly. Script and acting have come under fire along with a lot of consensus that the film just wasn’t “good” enough. Perhaps I’m simply not as much of a movie anorak as some people but for what it’s worth, this reviewer had a brilliant time and could highly recommend this film to anyone who’s bored, enjoys sci-fi, likes cutting humour, or just really wants to see a fleet of Space Zeppelins.