IRON SKY 2: The Coming Race. As entertaining like an old ghost train in an amusement park, as valuable as gold coin made of chocolate from last year.
I tried, and I love trash. But, no. These costumes. These effects. That chase (have you ever seen Ben Hur?). This script. The compass gag was the only funny one, maybe, and putting old Nokia on a pedestal. Sigh.
If Kit Dale (Malcolm) a muscle packed dumb-playing soldier is acting better than the rest of the cast (incl. listless Uod Kier) then nobody was watching the dailies…
Actually it seems even unworthy to write about, but it is remarkable that a movie like this exists. And we have to learn from the thiungs wich do NOT work out. Chapeau for director Timo Vourensola to pull off 2 movies in that spirit (the first one was better) and make it appear that they were crowd-funded. Because they were not. A small fraction of the 9 million of Iron Sky 1 came from fans, unfortunately, the rest were production companies, co-production and classic funding. The 17 million of the new one, I guess are not better but it sounds nice for journalists that the audience does support trash like that, coming of age.
Iron Sky: Coming of Age would be a better title. Because we have seen real trash for decades in the 70ies /80ies and 90ies and are snobs now. The Room, anyone?
More in-depth and mean (warning):
Shale. Stale ale from yesterday.
Would have been fun in 2009. Not now.
Very disappointing, but concerning it´s eclectic potential more than expected…moon nazis? Great. Götterdämmerung? Fantastic.
Really a serious fantasy movie? Well, Timo, that is above your paygrade. No. You cannot lift that. It comes across like a long, okish Netfix series episode. But of what series? Why shall we care about a black girl living with her (badly) aged Nazi mother in a swastika on the moon? Star Trek Discovery Season 2 has better effects and we strangely care more for Michael Burnham than for this Expanse-Naomi engineer rip-off, including haircut. Naomi is the better Burnham, and has a no obnoxious brother Spock or does run headlessly after an angel. A blond mother? Really? And the Gral is not healing bullet wounds, but the Vril food lets them regrow full fingers, right? What a sloppy, slow and not really funny script. Sigh. I am not even mildly amused. Specially I hated the Vril city concept art and the organic bones, bad armour of the Aguierre-Kinski-guards and silly Triceratops chase. How cheesy. You messed it up, Timo. That is not what we wanted. Already the first was not really there, but somehow fun. But this now is the trash we would not hold high in the old days. No exploitation bite, only outdated popcorn and shale coke.
The best of the movie was the trailer of John Wick / Chapter 3 in the advertising section before the movie start.
What happened in the last 10 years to geek/nerd culture? Becoming mainstream, Geek chic?
Why is “geek/nerd culture” now so weak, merely a fashion gimmick? Because it got already exploited by MTV, Wayne´s World and Tarantino? Do they have nothing to say? I think it gets digested by the establishment, which pulls teeth in the end. Geeks? They still find Steve Jobs bashing funny. I mean somehow it is. But they are all using it. As if the makers of Iron Sky are all dedicated Red Hat Linux fans. But – wait a minute, they are Finnish and the only funny part was when they glorified an old Nokia 3310 with Snake on it – AND a compass. They use Finnish sour Apple iPhone bashing which stole the Nokia glory even as a last resort Deus-Ex-Machina-device. Lame.
Actually did not work for me, I was not happy to see it, it depressed me. I found Jobism mildly funny. We are all guilty. But in times of Black Mirror we all know. We became all atheists, including not trusting Nokia or any tech brand anymore…brave new world. Dinosaurs? Send them in, we will not rise from the sofas checking Instagram or messaging in Telegram.
The quite below-the-belt blow Unnatural Selection: Why The Geeks Will Inherit The Earth (2013) by Mark Roeder proposing geek culture to be our planet´s fate, might be as outdated as Iron Sky 2. The bullies, the “trash” sitting on self-fabricated T-Rexes (what´s the plural of T-Rex?) spreading fear, those are the ones in charge, and the geeks are helping them to earn the big bucks and are becoming like them. Ugly. Not fun.
Sarah Palin is more sympathetic – because we know what we get. And nobody would suspect a geek behind those glasses…