I saw the Iron Sky recently in a preview screening here where I live. And, I quite liked the film.
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 is 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 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 moments, specially made for those viewers who are into internet-computer-pop culture related stuff, which makes sense considering the guys who made this are self taught young film makers who basically grew up making movies of their own and are children of the internets.
Iron Sky has a really good cast who deliver consistently strong performance throughout the film, with Julia Dietze, Christopher Kirby, Götz Otto, Peta Sergeant, Stephanie Paul and Udo Kier on the starring roles. 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... (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 un-noteworthy performance. There was subtlety in his act 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 good thing. There are many moments which I knew are definitely done with computers, but still were blast to watch. Nothing is jarring or unnecessary there like in majority of the CGI motion pictures of today.
Now there are some few shortcomings in the film of course, some minor stuff here and there, but also one bigger aspect that was quite difficult to overlook. The biggest shortcoming with Iron Sky is that the film jumps around, a lot. It feels like there are tons of shots missing from between the scenes. You can see the characters do something and have it immediately cut to a later moment of time, or to a completely different scene. The movie leaves a lot for the viewers to fill in. That was nothing too bad for me. It's a bit distracting, yes. But if you manage push that aside, there is interesting plot unfolding. Now while I had no difficulties following the movie, I can also see someone used to the regular Hollywood "paint it for the audience" type movies being lost with this film. Most of those scenes "missing" are mainly the connective shots that tie different locations together, minor stuff in the between. The important stuff needed for the plot are present, you'll just get some whip-slashes watching it.
However there is a very understandable excuse for that, what 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 bunch 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 told us that every scene they did had to be done in the way of "we'll shoot this if we get money to do it". And considering that, it's amazing they managed as much as they did.
So Iron Sky... It's a fun little movie that definitely differs from your average schlock. Yes, I'd recommend you to watch it.*
*Bear in mind that me being a Finn and this being a Finnish film gives me a slight bias here.And what about the the ending? Who wins? That was quite surprising turnout to me. I went to the movie fully expecting USA being the good guys coming to save the day, like usual. But they weren't the good guys. No one was. There were no absolute good guys and absolute bad guys in the film, which is quite surprising considering the subject matter of Nazis. I wont spoil the ending here, you have to see it yourself. Let's just say it might make you to think... I know it made me.
I almost forgot that I got from the screening a Poster autographed by Timo Vuorensola and Tero Kaukomaa and a shirt with the tour cities and some pins. I also got them to autograph my
NAZI-card:
You can buy your own nazi card to use in those pesky arguments from Varusteleka. EDIT#2: Added the SWAG image.