The Butt Ugly Weblog

Iron Sky

I finally managed to see Iron Sky, and even more finally managed to write more about it, aside from an odd tweet. I'm sort of torn: I really want to like this movie, but it just doesn't do it for me. I followed it as closely as anyone could, and chose the Sneak Preview as my method of supporting this uniquely crowdsourced movie, and it had all the right people doing it and a wonderful concept that couldn't be made by any other method than people who don't know that it's not supposed to be done this way.

The movie sounds and looks awesome: The Laibach/Torssonen -effect knocks your teeth out, and I predict a resurgence of nazi aesthetic design values after this movie (steampunk is so old, nazipunk is is the new black). The cast is just perfect, from the wonderful innocence of Julia Dietze to Udo Kier's frightening presence. My personal favourite was Kym Jackson's space commander aboard the you-know-what, who seemed like an anchor of sanity in the middle of all insanity. I would've very much liked to have seen more of her - which may have been in plans at some point, as suggested by this audition tape.

But the but... I just couldn't bring myself to like or hate the characters or the story. The jokes were obvious and bland - and turns out all the big ones had already been spoiled to me. So I guess there's disappointment at the fact that you can really spoil *all* the jokes in the movie in just a couple of paragraphs. That suggests there weren't that many to begin with. And the whole thing had a smell on it; as if too many people had tried to tweak the script instead of just one person carrying a single vision.

But the but of the but: this is still a good movie, definitely worth watching. It's not a masterpiece; it's more like a good summer blockbuster with an insane twist. With the longest both pre-movie and post-movie funding-list ever (you will have finished your popcorn by the time the list of institutions-that-gave-money ends).

I would love to see the director, Timo Vuorensola, make a smaller movie next to hone his skills. And I would love to see Mr. Torssonen, the effects wizard, do something really, really big next, 'cos he's got the skills - and is sufficiently mad - already. (And I would like to see more Kym Jackson (@aussiegirly on Twitter), obviously. :-P)