Iron Sky (2012)

You have no idea how hard it was to see this film. You see, I first heard of this film late last year, and very much eagerly awaited its release, which was originally in April, so I had to wait several months. When April finally came, it was announced ‘Iron Sky’ was once postponed by the UK distributor, Revolver Entertainment, so it was now being released in May.

Revolver Entertainment would then go on to do quite possibly the worst thing ever in cinema history; it releases what is obviously a very popular film, FOR ONE DAY. Not only did they release it for one day, they decided to release the film in one cinema every fifteen miles. So, for myself, like ‘Troll Hunter’, ‘Melancholia’ and ‘Red State’, not one of the three cinemas near me were playing it. From what I’ve heard, at one point Northern Ireland only had ONE cinema playing this film. I mean, come on! This film is even highly successful in Germany, and they avoid the word ‘Nazi’ like the plague!

It was announced that a selection of cinemas would have an extended run, but it still proved to be a terrible situation for me, as I wasn’t able to arrange a Saturday trip to London or Birmingham. The fact that the DVD was then released a week later lessened the rage for many people who wanted to see this film but couldn’t...until it was revealed that the DVD was going to lack any and all the special features that the makers of the film wanted to include. This was the first time ever, as far as I’m aware, that the producers of a film did not support the cinema/DVD release.

With that background on the UK release of this film let’s get to the actually movie. IT WAS AWESOME!

In this world, the Nazis had developed space travel and went to the moon when Nazi Germany fell. In 2018 the Space Nazis want to invade Earth and, you guessed it, take over the world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W7c8QghPxk). This is a decent plot, though it is roughly towards the second act where the invasion begins. Not that this is a bad thing, oh no, it allows us to connect with the characters.

Firstly, the special effects are spectacular, the CGI looks brilliant. I was actually surprised by this, I didn’t expect the effects to look this good since the film is a low budget production, but everything from the guns firing to the ships are stunning. In fact, the CGI is actually better than most blockbusters nowadays. I’m looking at you ‘Battleship’!

The characters are brilliant, most of them are interesting, funny and just damn right entertaining. Bizarrely the film does actually make the Nazi characters sympathetic sometimes, I think you'll understand why when you see a certain scene. Adler (Gotz Otto) was an incredible villain, funny at times, yet damn right ruthless as well. The President (Stephanie Paul), a Sarah Palin spoof, you’d think would be annoying, but she’s actually a very memorable character, while the Fuhrer Wolfgang Kortzfleisch (Udo Kier) portrayed a man succumbing to illness but keen to keep hold of power. He was an important character, but he was, sadly, underused. Since the makers are planning a prequel (As well as a sequel) maybe we can get some more interaction with him.

All of this wouldn’t be possible though, if there wasn’t great chemistry between the characters. Thankfully, there is great chemistry. The acting, okay at times it can be pretty meh, but at the same time it suits the characters oh so well.

If I do have to fault this film though, I did not like some of the characters at first. I didn’t really like James Washington (Christopher Kirby) at first, but he did grow on me. The film has some dark humour and though some aspects may be out of date, most of the issues are still relevant and all the jokes are, still, funny. Personally I really enjoyed the spoof of the infamous scene from 'Downfall'. The film did came under fire for some science-gone-wrong, one of which I saw towards the beginning, and that’s about it. Come on people, this is a film where the Nazis developed space travel in the 1940s, before colour television was invented. I think we can allow ourselves some artistic license.

The biggest disappointment was Renate Richter’s character (Julia Dietze), as I had a completely different look in mind for her. She is a teacher on the moon base, specialising in Earthology, but thinks the Nazi party is all about love, peace and unity. She eventually learns the truth in what the Nazis stand for and switches sides. To be honest, I was expecting her to be the big baddie, especially since she gives the trailer speech, which was epic in the trailer. Instead, she is effectively the good guy pretending to be bad. If she started off as pro-Nazi, then go anti-Nazi after staying on Earth for a while, that would’ve been better.

Apparently, she had no idea what the Nazis do, which makes me wonder what they pass onto descendants, or why she seems to be the only one who believes in equal rights. While also saying this, the Nazis developed the technology for space travel, they developed flying war ships, space zeppelins which fire meteors, a chemical which turns black men white (This seriously does happen), as well as the Space Nazi equivalent of the Death Star, and yet, they couldn’t develop a computer which is more powerful than an iPhone.

But the thing is, this film is meant to entertain, and boy does it do that. For those who are too stuck up to enjoy such a film, go away. For everyone else, this is a fantastic film. It’s funny, the plot is great, the ending/actions of the characters makes you wonder who the true villains are, the effects are brilliant, and it’s a terrific action film.