Zombie Column: Iron Sky

It's a Zombie Column! That's right, the Mindless Movie Marathon is back from the dead, but only for special occasions. This week's special occasion was Iron Sky. Iron Sky is one of those movies that was on our list to go see, but only if it was released here. It's an independent crowd-sourced movie, so chances were slim. However, it finally managed to snag a slot at a small theatre downtown called the Globe. There used to be another tiny theatre downtown (where I watched Bon Cop Bad Cop), but it shut down a while ago, so The Globe is the only independent movie theatre on that particular block (yes, the movie theatres were pretty much across the street from each other. They usually had different movies, though. Usually).

Anyway, this week I had intended to go with a few friends, but it turns out their apartment flooded, so I had to see it by myself - something I wasn't used to. I haven't been to a movie solo in a while (probably since Bon Cop Bad Cop, but it may have been The Protector or Fearless).

Iron Sky is the story of an idealistic young woman who grows up on the moon, then has her views tested when she returns to Earth. Oh yeah, she's a Nazi. Probably should have started with that. At the end of World War II, the Nazi's had a secret space program, and launched a bunch of people on to the moon, where they hid on its butt. Sorry, it's backside. Um, dark side. They've lived there in secret for many years, and now it's 2018. Their goal is to return to Earth to either conquer it or spread their message of hope, love, and socialism (they are based on the National Socialist Party, after all). Anyway, a cynical president expy of Sarah Palin sends some astronauts to the moon, one of whom is African American ("Black to the moon!" is the tagline for the mission, which is a blatant step in a re-election campaign).

Anyway, the black astronaut is captured by the Moon Nazi's, who originally think he's leading an invasion on them. Also, he's black, which doesn't really fit in with their whole Aryan thing. Finally, he has a cell phone, with which the Nazi's are amazed. Which was a pretty cool bit of Fridge Brilliance. The Nazi's left earth in 1945, at which time computers consisted entirely of vacuum tubes. Earth scientists invented transistors, but if the moon Nazi scientists missed it, they wouldn't have been able to do much technologically except shrink the vacuum tubes. There'd be no miniaturized transistors, no microchip, no circuit boards. Everything would be vacuum tubes. Which also gives the filmmakers an excuse to make everything all steampunk-ish.

Once the Nazi's discover the amazing power of the iPhone, they send a small team to Earth to collect a bunch of them and return to the moon to use the phones to power their warfleet.

So, this movie is silly. Darkly silly (literally, the moon is quite dim, and a lot of the scenes set in New York are set at night), and not always silly, but based on a silly premise. And normally I expect a movie based on a silly premise to be silly throughout, but it wasn't. There are several laugh-out-loud moments, but not really enough to constitute a comedy. I suppose it would be listed as science fiction, seeing as how it's set on the moon and outer space (Seriously, Star Wars is listed as science fiction, even though it's closer to adventure), maybe action-adventure, although there's not really enough of either to classify it as such. Mainly, it just tells a story, and throws a bit of each genre into it.

The music is ... decent, I suppose. I'm listening to it right now, and it seems to be better than what I heard last night. There were a few songs that stood out. The first one is called Take Me to Heaven, and gave me flashbacks to the Fallout universe, another futuristic society steeped in the  past. Near the end of the film, there was an ironic use of "Here comes the Bride" and then a haunting version of "The Stars and Stripes." It's actually called America, and uses the same words, but uses minor chords before going off in a new direction.

This was about the time that the film ended on a very dark and depressing note. Some silliness, yes, but mostly dark and depressing. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Still, I think it's a theatre movie, if only to prove that not all good movies have to have large budgets (it just helps).