Iron Sky

Over the past few weeks, I have reviewed nothing but the 2012 Oscar nominees.  I need a break, and I am dubbing that break "Iron Sky."  I stumbled across this movie thanks to Netflix, and IMDb claimed that people who liked Iron Sky also liked the Men in Black trilogy, Galaxy Quest, Dredd and, uh, Tank Girl.  Those are surprisingly likable "similar to" picks, so I decided to read up on Iron Sky a little.  I got as far as the first half of the first sentence of the Netflix description before I hit "play."

Secret moon Nazis attacking Earth?  That sounds positively amazing.  Sign me up.

The year is 2018, because this is a historical document from our future.  Take note, students!  America has sent a manned flight to the moon because the President, a Sarah Palin analogue (Stephanie Paul), decided that the easiest way to gain minority support was to send a black astronaut to the moon.  I don't necessarily follow that logic, but in all fairness, the film doesn't address how successful that plan is.  It should be noted that the astronauts did not land on the sunny, closer side of the moon; they landed near the dark side of the moon.  That turns out to be a bad idea, for reasons that do not include prog rock or laser shows.

Yes, that is an astronaut being executed by a Nazi stormtrooper

It seems that the Nazis sent a group to colonize the moon in the last days of World War II because of course they did.  In the intervening 70 years, they have built an advanced society that honestly believes that they are going to invade the Earth and bring peace to the planet.

How?  Military-grade cleavage.

Apparently, there has been some disconnect over the years between the military branch of the moon Nazis and the propaganda branch.  Klaus (Götz Otto), the heir apparent to the Moon Führer (played by Udo Kier because why not?), is well aware of the horrors that the Nazis will drop on Earth, but his prospective love interest/Earth expert/propaganda teacher, Renate (Julia Dietze), actually believes that Nazis will improve the world.  She believes that the Nazis were well-loved, and references the "ten-minute" film tribute, The Great Dictator, as proof.  However, once the Nazis are face-to-face with modern Americans, they realize that they might be a little outclassed; the surviving astronaut's smartphone is a more powerful computing device than the room-sized computers that the Nazis have.

Of course all Nazi scientists look like Einstein

To gain the necessary knowledge and materials to conquer the world, Renate and Klaus head to Earth.  But how will Renate react when she sees that the world isn't eagerly awaiting the return of the Nazis with open arms?  And what will happen when Klaus decides to rain hellfire from space?

Answer: B-movie space battles, that's what

When you watch a movie about Moon Nazis, you can be reasonably sure that the acting will not be a main priority.  To its credit, Iron Sky's acting isn't painfully bad.  Julia Dietze is actually pretty decent as Renate, even though her character is (arguably) the stupidest person in the film.  She had a silly role and didn't do it half-assed, so kudos to her.  How dumb was her part?  She was undressed by a depressurized hull.

Dietze's role was pretty thankless, but the rest of the cast had even less to work with.  Christopher Kirby got to speak in stereotypical black slang and was the butt of very generic black jokes.  It gets worse when his character is Aryan-ized; if you thought the jokes about black people were weak, wait until you get the jokes about someone who used to be black.

"Nein!  I do not want to wait for pain!"

Götz Otto was mediocre as the main villain; he was unlikable enough, but the gags kept him from coming across as truly evil.  Udo Kier was actually a pretty good choice to play a creepy German character, but his part was small and underwhelming.  Stephanie Paul was...well, she was an obvious analogue to Sarah Palin, so your appreciation of her depends on how funny you find broadly drawn Palin jokes.

I am jealous that Fake Palin talks to holograms, though

Rounding out the cast, Peta Sergeant was almost fun as a somewhat skanky political advisor.  Almost.

The main problem for most of the cast was that the script for Iron Sky is pretty awful.  There's not much you can do when you're in a movie about Moon Nazis and the film isn't very much fun.  The script is certainly to blame for most of that --- the "jokes" barely deserve finger quotations, much less actual ones --- but the general plot was also underwhelming.  Iron Sky is about Moon Nazis invading Earth.  There is no excuse for extended chunks of boredom.  And yet, the audience is subjected to sub-SNL-quality political satire to fill the gaps between astronauts getting shot and space battles.

YOU HAVE STORM TROOPERS!  JUST INVADE, ALREADY!

That is, ultimately, the worst thing about Iron Sky: it should be a lot of fun, but it thinks it is being clever.  It is not clever in the least.  Director and co-writer Timo Vuorensola is mostly to blame for this clusterfuck, but when you have characters acting like complete jackasses, with zero chance of any comedic return, that blame deserves to be spread out a little.

I was legitimately excited to watch Iron Sky, and the first few scenes on the moon didn't disappoint.  Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is fairly slow and tedious.  I wasn't looking for Shakespeare, but I was hoping for something gleefully stupid.  Instead, Iron Sky is filled with characters trying to be funny, but not quite understanding how to make that happen.  You might think that such a drab effort would sour me on stupid Nazi movies, but that is not the case.  In fact, one of the worst movie studios working today managed to make a far more amusing stupid Nazi movie at almost the exact same time as Iron Sky...and I'll review it tomorrow.  Meanwhile, Iron Sky gets a little credit for its premise and the opening scenes, but it was a sincere disappointment from a "laugh and drink to this" perspective.

Far Cry

Well, I did it again.  Despite the fact that Uwe Boll has made some of my least favorite movies of all time, I once again chose to watch another of Boll's directorial efforts.  This one, Far Cry, like so many of his movies, is an adaptation of a video game.  So, right off the bat, this movie has two strikes going against it: an awful filmmaker and a video game pedigree.  On the bright side, I didn't see this movie listed as one of the worst of 2008, so maybe the man has progressed a bit.  Or maybe it never had widespread theatrical release.

The film opens with the camera serving as a point of view for an unknown attacker; the screen looks somewhat digitized, but that will actually make sense later.  The fact that I can make that assurance already makes this far better than the last Boll movie I reviewed.  The attacker is going after some soldiers in a jungle area; the attacker is strong, beyond fast, well-camouflaged, and extremely deadly.  What's going on with all this?  Well, it seems that a mad scientist, Dr. Krieger (Udo Kier), is experimenting on humans in an attempt to create a genetically enhanced soldier.  Oh, those mad scientists...those rascals sure do love to make affronts to God, don't they?  Kreiger has succeeded in making a deadly and nigh-indestructible creature that is bulletproof (except for the eyes and mouth) and super-strong, but these former men are now uncontrollable homicidal beasts.  "Uncontrollable" and "homicidal" are two adjectives that the military doesn't like to hear when applied to their soldiers, so Krieger's funding is halted until he can figure out how to make these things follow orders.  Creating desperate mad scientists by withholding funding is usually a sure-fire way to have consequence-free scientific advances, so this can't possibly go wrong.

Meanwhile, Valerie (Emmanuelle Vaugier), a reporter, is on her way to Dr. Krieger's island; her uncle Max (Ralf Moller) is going to leak her some information so they can blow the lid off Krieger's inhumane experiments.  To get to the island, she charters a boat from Jack Carver (Til Schweiger), an ex-military bad-ass who now spends his time drinking and chartering his boat for tourist whale watching sessions.  It seems that Krieger knew of Max's treachery, though, and was ready for Valerie's arrival; they try to kill her and somebody has the wise idea of firing a missile at Jack's boat.  Bad idea; they have, unsurprisingly, messed with the wrong temporarily retired bad-ass.  Now, Jack has to search the island for Valerie, because...um...she's on the way to another boat?  I'm not sure on that one.  When Krieger discovers that Valerie is still alive, he sets his super soldier monsters after her, which has the unintended side effect of having the uncontrollable homicidal creatures killing everyone they come across.

I will give credit where it is due; this is by far the best Uwe Boll movie I have ever seen.  The action sequences are almost decent and some of the special effects shown (like the close up of the super soldier's bulletproof skin) actually looked good.  The action scenes, while pretty generic, are competent, I can actually tell where characters are in relation to each other, and I can even get the gist of what is going on in the plot.  Of course, these are pretty basic filmmaking skills, but Uwe Boll is arguably a less competent version of Ed Wood (no offense to the late Mr. Wood).  So, consider my support for his work here in the same way you would applaud the efforts of a child who no longer has to wear protective goggles when using a fork.  

Aside from the almost mediocre action sequences, Far Cry does a halfway decent job with its cast.  Til Schweiger (who you may have seen in Inglourious Basterds) has the potential to be a pretty good action hero.  That isn't too surprising, since he has drawn more audiences to German theaters than any other German actor; take that with a grain of salt, though, since there are still over one hundred American and British actors that are bigger stars in Germany.  Still, Schweiger is believable as a tough guy, and that is what his role demands.  Udo Krier, while not a great actor, always makes a pretty decent villain; that's probably because his hollow eyes show the emptiness of his soul.

Eat all you want, Udo.  Nothing will fill the void where your heart should be.

Of course, those are only two of the film's actors.  There are many bit parts in the film, and they are all played by amateurs (I assume).  Emmanuelle Vaugier doesn't have that excuse.  Her job in this film is to be the predictably sassy reporter, or a damsel in distress at the very least.  As far as her "distress" goes, her "I'm scared" face is suspiciously similar to my "is this cheese moldy?" face; she often looks somewhat inquisitive, while frowning slightly.  As for her sass...well, it's not her fault that the dialogue is terrible, but she has zero comedic timing and couldn't hit a punchline with a big, red wiffle ball bat.  And what was going on with her face?  Vaugier is normally a reasonably attractive woman, but she has some unflattering swollen lips, Vulcan-style eyebrows, and what I can only assume is clown mascara.  Gross.

The biggest problem with this film is its tone.  Sure, you can argue that the lackluster direction and acting makes this a bad movie, but the tone is what sets it apart as truly awful.  I don't know how familiar you are with German humor.  It supposedly exists, although I imagine that it is often paired with the punchline "YOU LAUGH NOW!"  Well, this movie, like all Boll films, is largely a German production.  Unfortunately, this film tries to be a funny action movie.  It doesn't work out well.  To give you an idea of the "humor" in this film, I don't think it is a spoiler to announce that the hero has sex with his female lead.  After the dirty deed, though,  Jack asks her how he rates, on a scale of 1 to 10; she gives him a 2.  Hilarious, right?  Well, they go back to that joke at least six more times and, eventually, Jack explains the joke out loud.  Even worse, this guy is a supporting character:

He's the guy who supplies this island with sandwiches.  But guess what?  He loves to eat his own sandwiches more than he likes to work!  Because he's fat!  And he talks to his sandwiches like he's seducing them.  BWA-HA-HA!  And his catch phrase seems to be "Oww...my back!"  Get it?  He's fat!  And somehow, despite dozens of armed soldiers and some nigh-indestructible super soldiers, this character survives.  These attempts at humor are not sporadic; the script is filled with them.  Not a single actor in this film makes any of these lines work, either.  If you, like me, cannot stand comedic failures in cinema, be warned that this film might cause you to vomit through your eye sockets.

Sure, there's more wrong with the movie than just the humor, but that is certainly the worst of it.  Oh, you want to hear more?  Fine, here are the low-lights.  The super soldiers are far deadlier in the opening scene (when you don't see them) than in any other scene; he evil doctor gives the plucky reporter the dime tour of his highly illegal operation before trying to kill her; the super soldiers look like buff versions of Powder; the super soldiers are unkillable, except when you shoot them in the eyes or mouth...unless the plot decides that some soldiers can survive being shot in the eye.  This is a terrible movie, so none of this should be surprising.  Still, some of the movie is almost watchable, so kudos to Uwe Boll for his first not completely unwatchable film.