Review: Iron Sky

       In 2008, I saw the teaser trailer for Iron Sky. I was instantly floored, the premise in and of itself demanded that I see this movie: “In 1945, the Nazis went to the moon. In 2018, they're coming back.” As a fan of both sci-fi and movies with nazis as the villains, this seemed like a home run. The special effects in the trailer were stunning, and the song that it used promised an epic adventure of nazi flying saucers fighting against the earth armies of the near future. After some research, I learned that the movie was going to be a comedy, this tempered my enthusiasm only slightly. I thought that there could still be a chance for this movie to be a sort of Starship Troopers meets Dead Snow perfectly blending action and comedy. After watching the film, I couldn't be more disappointed. While the visual effects were amazing, especially for a low-budget film such as this, the focus of this film was on social commentary. Instead of epic fight scenes with nazis in space, we got a watered down, crude version of Dr. Strangelove.

       The movie begins with an American mission making a successful moon landing. After poking around a little, they quickly discover the moon has people living on it. The nazis on the moon quickly eliminate all but one of the astronauts. They take the lone survivor, James Washington, prisoner and question him, assuming he is an allied spy. The fact that Washington is african-american only serves to befuddle the aryans further, and they attempt to turn him into one of their own via science. A school teacher on the moon colony named Renate is the foremost expert on earth culture and is fascinated by Washington. A smart phone carried by Washington carries the computing power needed by the nazis to power their ultimate war machine, but because of the limited battery life, they mount a mission to go to earth to acquire more smart phones. Meanwhile on earth, America has elected their first female president. While, Madame President is never named, it is clear that she is supposed to be a caricature of Sarah Palin. With her reelection looming, the President's campaign manager is struggling to find the right message to fire up voters. Naturally she finds such a message in the fiery rhetoric of the recently landed Nazis. Some time passes and Renate and her beau (and fuhrer to be) Klaus Adler become successful members of the President's campaign, and now aryan Washington becomes a homeless conspiracy theorist claiming there are Nazis on the moon. Renate eventually learns to see the evil in the Nazi party and her and James try to stop Klaus from completing his original mission. Eventually, the Nazi space luftwaffe does take flight and the earth fights back, that is of course if you manage to keep watching this movie before turning off your DVD player.

       I already voiced my strongest objection to this film, but there are other major flaws as well. Since this film was made by Finnish writers and directors, very little knowledge of what American culture is actually like is used and instead they draw upon broad stereotypes. Players in an inner-city basketball game interrupted by the nazis all draw guns and start shooting. The President assumes that America has the right to the resources found on the moon, not because we were there first, but rather because we beat the nazis the first time around, and therefore we deserve it. And it's not just America that is the target of this movies “satirical” aim. During the final space battle, the Japanese ship is scene purposefully crashing into an enemy ship. The Finns also lack an understanding of American geography. The Nazis land on earth in “upstate New York,” but we can clearly see the New York City skyline in the background, and the presumably walk into the city. The film has other major plot holes. The biggest being the fact that The President appoints her campaign manager to captain the American space dreadnaught (naturally dubbed the USS George W. Bush), rather than someone who actually has military training and experience. The only redeeming quality of this film was the special effects, which for the most part were actually pretty impressive. It's obvious that this is where the filmmakers spent the majority of their budget. Too bad they didn't spend more money on a better script instead.