Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning

So Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is an amateur production. There isn't much in the film that betrays this — even most of the acting would fail to put a Hollywood B production into shame, and there are some brilliant cases of casting, and even a couple of superb actors.

In the Pirkinning is above all an action-adventure film with seemingly big-budget special effects — except that the special effects budget is dirt cheap. It is also a fairly well working comedy — of the darker kind, with a touch of political satire and a heavy dose of teevee science fiction parody.

Oh yeah, and it has scantily clad females on the bridge (but they have an EDGE!).

There's something intangibly Finnish about all Finnish movies, and this one is no exception. I don't know if it is the language, or if it is the people, or if it is the landscape — perhaps it is all of them. This movie would look and sound very different had it been produced in just about any other country by people of any other nationality. Bizarrely, it also is, in my opinion, one of the best films ever made in Finland. (I'm sure some other people will disagree.)

The movie is in Finnish. Although some of the jokes rather depend on understanding the Finnish language or the Finnish culture, they are in the minority, and most of the fun is universally understandable. Of course, a loyal teevee scifi fan will find a lot of extra laughs and recognize several subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) references to memorable shows and movies, often with a twist.

In short, In the Pirkinning is Mel Brooks' Spaceballs with actual balls, Finnish style.

After listening to the rumors about this movie for about two months, i decided to download it myself to see what the fuss was all about. The guys who's brainchild star wreck is advertised the movie in radio and TV claiming it to be the most seen finnish film in the year 2005 based on the amount of downloads from their home site (of course you can add p2p on that number as well).

First and foremost, i find it astonishing that a group of nobodies can pull off a project like this. I salute them, even though i'm aware they have worked on star wreck for quite a while...they're still not professionals.

When you look at the starship effects, it's difficult to believe the above to be true. These ships can compete with the ones seen on the TV-series any day. Naturally time has passed, and the effects can be created without the kind of money needed back in the day, but it's still amazing this whole thing was pulled of virtually without money.

The sets and uniforms look good, too. The Star Trek ships look very good on the inside as well, the Babylon 5 ship a bit more stale, but in the same sentence i must admit i did not watch Babylon 5 when it was on TV, so it's possible that's the way it should look like.

After all the praise we must unfortunately move on to the things that did NOT work for the benefit of this movie. The acting, let's face it, is amateurish. That's not the real problem, however. The problem is the way the crew decided to deliver the comedy. Comedy is a difficult form of acting, even the masters of the craft know it. At times the acting in Star Wreck goes just silly, and beyond. It may be less obvious to non-finns who are watching this with subtitles, only understanding the witty writing (which i thought was great, by the way), and missing what the actors are actually saying and how. At points i chuckled, but at times i felt a bit ashamed, to tell you the truth. A good example of the diversity is how the same actor first annoys the hell out of you with the character Sergei Fukov, and then delivers almost like a pro as Festerbester. Overall i felt these actors could've pulled off a bit more serious version of this movie, or a poker-face spoof in the spirit of Leslie Nielsen and Charlie Sheen. As it is, the silly faces and shouting, and near slapstick just doesn't work.

Finally, i see many of you IMDb browsers did not give this film a fair rating. I've decided to treat this movie as i would any other, despite the many redeeming factors. After all, it's the end result i'm reviewing here.

rating: 5/10 - shows promise

Having seen all the earlier Star Wrecks, I was intrigued by what I saw in the trailers for the new one. Who wouldn't be? Normally visuals effects just don't do it for me, but in this case they seemed very interesting. Admittedly, this had a lot to with the fact that the movie is Finnish. Only one Finnish movie using visual effects before this one comes to mind (Rölli) and Star Wreck tops that easily. The visual effects are just another way of telling the story, as they should be.

And what a story. I found it especially interesting that the protagonist is a megalomaniac out to conquer the universe. How often do we see that? Accompanied by an android and a more-or-less homicidal maniac, they actually manage to take over the world, but that is just the beginning.

The acting is mostly horrible and at best campy, but I can live with that. The visuals are easily on par with the professional stuff done on Star Trek or other such TV-shows. Humor is often weak and the "funny" names just don't work. At times it's good, but there are not many moments which are laugh-out-loud funny. Gladly, the more low key humor works in parts very well.

All in all, I liked the movie. I gave it a 9 (out of 10) because it's Finnish, in reality it's closer to a low 8 or high 7. I don't really know how well the jokes translate to other cultures, but hopefully the movie will get the attention it deserves. In Finland, the series has gained a sort of cult status and deservedly so.

You have to see this movie. The opening scene was so amazingly professional that i thought i had downloaded the wrong film. But, the opening joke was so terribly cliché'd that i realized i got the right one.

I honestly could not tell the difference between the graphics in this movie and in a real start trek movie. Its simply amazing. I'd love to know what they use for CGI tools and how big is the rendering farm.

The scenes on-board the space ships were great, the sets were totally believable (much better than an original STAR TREK set, and most were BETTER than a ST:TNG set.) The acting was very good, the jokes were funny, the only thing separating this movie from a Hollywood film is a little bit of je-ne sais quois.

All in all, the most AMAZING amateur film i've ever seen, they should give these guys $10M and a team of 5 Hollywood (o.k., maybe new york) writers, and see what they can do in 3.5 years, rather than 7.

The trailer already whetted my appetite. But the movie itself is outstanding. If you are a fan of Star Trek, Babylon 5, etc you have probably also thought of some scenes you would like to see. For me this movie comes very close. The CGI effects can only be described as awesome. Every scene breathes the love of the staff for details. Especially the battle scenes are outstanding and give every Star Wars movie a run for its money. The plot is also masterly constructed. The tension builds up in the first twenty minutes or so and reaches several peaks after that. The story has a great tongue-in-cheek attitude. The characters are only slightly exaggerated compared to their respective originals which keeps them from getting on your nerves too fast. Fortunately the actors avoid overacting - which impressed me as this is still a fan movie after all. The only drawback is that the audio is Finish with English sub-titles. But what the heck: Hearing the tone of Pirk's derogatory remarks is compensation enough.