Iron Sky

This poster mostly sums up the whole deal.

"Get Ready, The Fourth Reich Is Here."

Hi everyone, welcome to another Thursday at The Tagline! As promised, I bring you both something that is less of a bummer, and also something that is pretty terrible. Today's feature is Iron Sky, a movie that takes place in the future, but involves a little revisionist history. You see, as they saw they were losing the war, the Nazis decided that they would retreat to the dark side of the moon. Where they have remained since then. The movie takes place in 2018, when the lady-strongly-resembling-Sarah-Palin president of the united states sends a mission to land on the moon, to help her re-election campaign somehow. One of the astronauts she sends is actually a black model (because a "black guy" on the moon will look good, isn't that nice?) and when they land on the moon they find... Nazis! They find a Nazi moon base, and that the Moon Nazis are preparing to launch their assault on the Earth, where with their "meteorblitzkrieg" they will purify the Earth and claim it for their Fourth Reich. In preparation for their assault, the Moon Nazis send a vanguard that includes their future Fuhrer Klaus Adler, the black astronaut, who they have turned white, and also Klaus' prospective bride to be Renate Richter. Naturally no one really believes they are Moon Nazis, but that changes once the skies are darkened by their flying saucers and space zeppelins. 

This is the Moon Nazi Swastika Fortress. Yup.

Now I know, this sounds like I must be making it up right? No I so am not. This film was Finnish-German-Australian collaboration that is both ridiculous, very funny, and takes very blunt stabs at the absurdity of modern politics. For instance the Americans are perhaps REALLY landing on the moon to secure 'helium-3' which can apparently secure the U.S. for fuel and power for the next thousand years (I think you can see perhaps obvious contemporary comparisons) When the US reveals their giant space battleship, the USS George W Bush (no really) all the other UN security council nations reveal their own secret space ships, violating a treaty they all signed (except for Germany). There is also a moment when North Korea tries to take credit for the invading space ships, and then everyone laughs at the North Korean delegate and tells him to shut up. That was pretty good too.

Oh Renate, you saucy space Nazi-teacher.

So as much as it is absurd and completely over-the-top, this movie is also clever in its own way. I have to say for a budget of around 7.5 million Euros that it doesn't look half bad either (like really for a movie made on that kind of budget it actually looks kind of spectacular). The critical reception for this movie was icy, and it seems like no matter which way people were casting their votes they weren't really getting it. Critics hated it for being silly, and it seems like dim people like it because "LOLZ NAZIS" Now I'm not trying to tell you this movie is a cinema masterpiece, but it was amusing in a hammy kind of way, and also it makes fun of politicians and I enjoy that because I don't like those guys, generally speaking. I'm not sure really what you would expect from a movie about moon Nazis other than that it would be ridiculous. I also don't understand how I live in a world where everyone goes "oh come on this is SOOOO silly" but then a Battleship movie grosses like 303 million dollars worldwide (gross being the operative term here). Can't we just laugh at how similar power grasping politicians are to space Nazis and enjoy that? I know I'm willing to.

Come on guys, can't we just enjoy this?

I also enjoyed one particular scene that paid homage to the often-parodied scene in film Downfall (you know where Hitler gets really mad and yells at everyone). It took me a moment to realize what was happening, but then I was really amused! The point is, the movie was entertaining, and it is on the 'Flix, just waiting for you to watch it and take in those Nazi flying saucers re-entering Earth's atmosphere, to wage war on the Earthlings. Maybe give 'er a watch? 

That's it for this week, join me next week when I (might?) have a review of Iron Man 3, which I hope will break the "third movie in a marvel franchise" curse, by not sucking donkey balls.