3 Short Paragraphs: Iron Sky

2012, Timo Vuorensola (Jeepers Creepers: Reborn) -- Amazon Prime

I remember seeing the teaser / POC back when it came out, loving the look & feel, the "ironpunk" (post steampunk, but more about big gears and diesel engines) motif and the idea of Nazis invading from the moon in flying saucers. But then I saw the full film come out as a farce / comedy and my interested waned. But really, how could such a premise not be a farce? I just prefer my gonzo scifi to come with a certain amount of taking-itself-too-seriously. The movie that came out felt more a mockery of the premise. Fast forward and more movies came out, and I never rented (did we still rent in 2012 ?) or downloaded it and it dropped from memory. But then it appeared on Amazon, I added it to my list, and it again dropped from memory. But in a recent Saturday morning spate of click click click, I gave it a shot.

I pretty much got exactly what I thought it was way back then. In 1945 as the Third Reich collapses, Nazis escape to the moon with their "advanced" technology, biding their time until ... 2018, when a return moon landing crew ("Black to the moon") bumps into them, and is captured, the course is set for the Moon Nazis to return. You see, their plans have been on hold due to internal stagnation and an inability to launch their biggest flying saucer. But the smart phone taken from one of the astronauts, and integrated into ironpunk tech gives them another chance. BUT the battery soon runs out, and they hatch a plan to return to Earth to get more.

Despite the great visuals that were used to sell the original idea, the movie spends far too much time trying to be the next Space Balls, but without the Mel Brooks skill. The humour, softly off colour, is usually only worth a light chuckle or blank stares. I get it, they needed us to laugh at the ludicrous Moon Nazis, but the story and script are very weak, feeling more like some late 80s bottom shelfer. We do end up with an exciting segment of Moon Nazis invading NYC via space faring blimps & flying saucers, but it is overshadowed by the barely laughable ISS turned space battle cruiser. I am not sure why I continued to watch, but I suppose it was better than going back to click click click.

The said, it gave me an idea for ANOTHER theme for this blog, focused solely on Amazon movies, which Kent and I have access to. The service has a "suggested titles" shown below any movie you think to watch. If the movie is low grade, like this one, the suggested ones are ... even lower grade. In 'Since You Watched X' we would choose one of those terrible Straight to Amazon flicks and torture ourselves by watching it through, and then mock/tear it to shreds in a post. Now that I have written that out loud, I wonder if I need the pain...