REVIEW: 'Iron Sky'

Sci-fi comedy summed up in four words: Nazis on the moon. At the end of WWII, the Nazis fled to the dark side of Earth's natural satellite to hide and rebuild. Now playing nationwide.

We also interviewed the President!

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The problem with high-concept films is that once you’ve ticked off the promises of the pitch, where do you go next? As Samuel L Jackson once so eloquently put it, “I have had it with these motherf***ing snakes on this motherf***ing plane!” Anyone brave enough to approach Finnish-German-Australian curio Iron Sky – essentially 'Nazis On The Moon' – will feel the same.

In an eye-catching introduction that looks like the cutaway scene from a computer game, director Timo Vuorensola sets out his film’s rather limited stall. American astronauts, bouncing across the shiny CGI-scapes of the moon, discover massive LOTR-style mines guarded by Luger-toting Nazis. “Houston, we have a problem!” someone should, but doesn’t, say.

The real problem, however, is that once the film has introduced its two main selling points – Nazis and the moon – it has nothing left to offer. The surviving astronaut (Christopher Kirby) is captured by a Nazi commander (Gotz Otto) but coveted by his mistress (Julia Dietze). You won’t need to be Albert Einstein (who cameos) to know where the trio is heading next. That’s right: Earth.

Playing out pedestrianly in New York City, the film soon becomes a lame invasion spoof, like Mars Attacks without the stars, or Austin Powers without the jokes. Kirby is a reductive Blaxploitation hero in all but decade, lines such as “Get your hands off me you Kristallnacht piece of s***!” are too knowing to be funny, and the film hasn’t the budget to match its dizzying concept, nor the wit to fill the gaps between.

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