Iron Sky

I saw the film yesterday in Oslo and I must say I thought it was exhilarating, fresh and different. It's also one of those films that you either love or hate, I do not think it is one that you can be indifferent to.

The German language adds a nice touch, and the way it is used helps a lot with creating a believable atmosphere to some scenes. The actors are doing a good job of portraying the stereotypes that they need in order for the humor to work. The humor is pleasantly free from political correctness. And there are many nice references throughout the film, so if you have been living in a cave (or on the moon) for the last seventy years, I doubt you will find it as funny as I personally did.

The CGI is stunning when at it's best. It is not perfect everywhere, but all in all it is quite convincing. The style can best be described as toned down and with natural colors that work very well for this film.

The story is funny if you let it stand on it's own and accept it for what it is. Let yourself be entertained. I am sure that if you have a very critical mindset when going to see this film you will probably find something to pick on. Things could probably be a bit better and more consistent in a + $100M film, but I do not think we would see this expressive freedom in a + $100M film...

The soundtrack was also well thought of and added the needed atmosphere trough the whole film. Not one tune seemed misplaced and I thought it was very impressive.

I liked Iron Sky a lot, and I would recommend it in a heartbeat. I believe this film has the potential to be the cult film of the year. And I think it will do well for itself on cinemas around the world.

I loved all the cgi in this movie. See it on a big screen, it will be worth it. I guess you could compare it to movies such as Starship Troupers (1997) or Mars Attacks (1996). Iron Sky is a great example of what can be achieved with cgi. You may even laugh out loud. You will certainly smile for an hour and a half.

Excellent parody! If you would wanted to watch a Star Wars type of movie you would be disappointed for sure, but if you appreciate the subtle irony then this your flick. I am sure that not much US Americans would enjoy it, because America is the greatest and you know, they have no mistakes! :) They only have jokes like: Hiroshima joke, Nagasaki joke, Vietnam joke and so on. And these were not acts of extreme fascism, but just peaceful and liberating intervention. ;) I liked this movie be not only for the good sarcasm, but also for the truths that have been said. This is a good German response to the Tarantino's Indigenous Bastards.

Saw this movie the 62nd Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival). Recommend its worth your time given a few caveats.

Lots of things to like about Timo's sophomore effort here. The movie is intentionally campy and plays to a number of eccentric stereotypes. Albeit, it feels very much a European view of some of the US eccentricities. The script was, by and large, well developed, the humor a little cheesy at times but generally spot on and large kudos should be paid to the FX, CGI teams for some outstanding segments in a sub $10M budgeted movie. The best parts include some great inside jokes specific to Americans and Germans, wonderful stereotyping of international ethnicities/prejudices, great attention to detail in costumes, sets, current culture trends and some above average acting by Julia Dietze, Goetze Otto and, of course, the wonderful Udo Kier. Oh, and the Laibach score for the movie was simply superb.

My caveats are that the cut I saw could have used slightly more surgical editing. Also, while I think Christopher Kirby has played well in other movies, I felt disappointed by this casting choice, as his role was central to the story line and the least "even" in terms of performance. Finally, it is intentional camp so expectations should be adjusted prior to entering the theater. I'm not sure the Mystery Science Theater guys could have come up with better lines than some that were already in the script of this movie.

In the end this felt much more thought out and a real "labor of love" than the traditional camp of Scary Movie, et al. This movie certainly has all the right elements of an instant cult classic. Putting it more simply, its about Nazis, living in a swastika shaped Moon base, trying to re-invade Earth!

My sincere thanks to the Iron Sky community for pulling the resources together to get this film made. For $7.5M I'd say, job very well done! This is probably, or usually, a ~7 IMDb score for this kind of a movie. I'm giving it 8 to balance out the previous reviewer.

I saw the Iron Sky recently in a preview screening. And, I quite liked it.

For those that do not know, Iron Sky is a Sci-fi action comedy from a team of Finnish "independent" film makers lead by Timo Vuorensola as the director. Iron Sky tells a story about 'freaking space Nazis from the dark side of the moon coming back to earth'.

For what it is, the movie works fine. It's not a masterpiece of dramatic cinematic flavor on line with Citizen Kane or Pianist with some deep philosophical dialog. No, its more in the line of campy Nazisploitation and over-the top action, as one would come to expect. And as one would expect, the movie is absolutely ridiculous. It has its many fun moments and true laugh out loud scenes, specially made for those viewers who are into internet/computer/pop culture related stuff, which presence makes sense considering the guys who made this film are "self taught" young film makers who basically 'grew up' making movies of their own, and are the children of the Internets.

Iron Sky has a really good cast who deliver consistently strong performance throughout the film. With Udo Kier being my absolute favorite who sadly goes somewhat underused with his too old to care and strictly for business Nazi führer of the moon guy... (Oh well, I still have him as the Yuri in Red Alert 2.) Weirdly, Götz Otto being the go-to baddie of the movie, delivers somewhat dry and unnoteworthy performance. And I think it felt this way was because there was a subtlety in his acting which sadly vanishes under rest of the silliness in the film.

Now as expected from the guys who previously did the Star Wrek comedy films, they made absolutely brilliant CGI effects for Iron Sky. I rarely could tell which stuff were done with practical effects and which were done with CGI, which is a very good thing. There are many moments which I knew were definitely done with computers, but still were a blast to watch. Nothing there is jarring or unnecessary feeling, like in majority of the other CGI motion pictures of today.

Now there are some few shortcomings in the film of course, few minor stuff here and there, but also one bigger aspect that was quite difficult to overlook. And that is that the Iron Sky skips around, a lot. It felt like there were tons of shots missing from between the key scenes. You'll watch the characters do something and have it immediately cut to a later moment in time, or to a completely different scene all together. The movie leaves a lot for the viewers to fill in. That was not too difficult for me one I adjusted. It's a bit distracting, yes. But if you manage to push it past, you'll find interesting plot unfolding. Now while I had no difficulties following the movie, I can also see someone used to the regular Hollywood "tell it to the audience" type movies being lost with this film. While the important scenes needed for the plot are still very much present, the sudden jumps might leave the viewer lagging behind, you might get some whiplashes watching this film.

However, there is a very understandable excuse for that, which the director himself told us in the theater on the Q&A session after the film. And it's that way because they had to cut stuff from the script as they simply had no money to realistically do most of them. Iron Sky had a budget of only of 7 million Euros, which compared to other proper big movies, is nothing. They said that every scene they did had to be done in the way of "we'll shoot this if we get the money to do it". And considering that, it's amazing they managed as much as they did.

Iron Sky is a fun little movie that definitely differs from your average schlock. I'd recommend to watch it, if only for the sake of curiosity. (And ridiculous Nazis.)

And what about the the ending? Who wins? Oh, you'll have to watch the movie to find out. You might get a surprise. It might make you stop and think... I know it made me.