Film Review: Iron Sky

Posted in Film, Reviews
By Sam Bathe on 21 May 2012

“In 1945 Nazis went to the Moon. In 2018, they’re coming back,” is one of the best movie taglines in recent memory. Though with Iron Sky in production for over six years, you’d probably hope they’d come up with something good.

Initially taken to Cannes in 2008 as a spec. trailer to try and find financing, Iron Sky has built a cult reputation and fanbase online, with the producers hitting various forums to seek help on community tasks, like a worldwide stream team. Then in 2010 the filmmakers were back in France to sign a production deal, and ever since, it’s been all systems go.

The tagline pretty much sums the movie up; we join as a US rocket touches down on the moon, but when the astronauts step outside of their craft, a bunch of encroaching Nazis are less than accommodating. Building a massive spaceship, the tyrants are planning their return and to conquer Earth one and for all, but their ship, however, is missing something.

Plugging spaceman James Washington’s iPod into mission control, the ship builds up a head, only before they know it, runs out of power. Realising now what they’re missing, the Nazis send Klaus Adler (Otto) on an advanced mission to Earth to buy up more of our future technology, as the key to society’s demise, it turns out, is an iPad.

A B-movie pastiche, had Iron Sky been tackled in a much more serious vein, dare I say, even played it straight, it would have been a lot more effective. There numerous slapstick and clichéd plot points, characters and MacGuffins, but none ever really pull it off, and as a whole, only let the film down.

Christopher Kirby as the black surviving astronaut is hammy as hell, same with Stephanie Paul who plays a painful interpretation of the US president, and a Palin clone at that. Julia Dietze is one of the few saving graces, with the intentionally over-emphatic performances falling almost uniformly flat.

The political satire on Earth should be deemed a massive failure and the CGI falls similarly down  the pan. Iron Sky is a silly, misstep on what is a brilliant concept and could have been a wildly entertaining movie. Re-watch the teaser trailer, skip the final production.

1/5

FAN THE FIRE is a digital magazine about lifestyle and creative culture. Launching back in 2005 as a digital publication about Sony’s PSP handheld games console, we’ve grown and evolved now covering the arts and lifestyle, architecture, design and travel.