IRON SKY: THE COMING RACE (2019)

Okay, so, I’m a huge fan of the original film Iron Sky (2012) and I’ve had to wait seven years to finally see the sequel…and it’s totally worth the wait!  IRON SKY: THE COMING RACE (2019) and it’s forbearer is one of those great guilty pleasure films that has so much going for it that you kind of forgive its faults probably because its faults add to its charm.

Renate Richter (Julia Dietze) and the last remaining survivors of Earth after the devastation at the end of the previous film find themselves back on the dark side of the moon on the now former Nazi base.  Years later the base is on its last leg and the only person keeping everything working and operational is Richter’s now grown daughter Obi (Lara Rossi) who is the only one that believes that time is running out and they need to leave the base before it is too late.

Not soon after Obi discovers that Vril Wolfgang Kortzfleish (Udo Kier) has been hiding on the base.  He tells her that if she’s goes back to Earth to a hidden world in the center of the Earth she will be able to find a power source that will extend her and her peoples’ live while providing her a means to power a ship to get everyone to safety.  When a rag-tag ship crashes on the moon she enlists the aid of its captain Sasha (Vladimir Burlakov) to help her get to the center of the Earth and help her.

With the help of Sasha and his ship, her best friend Malcom (Kit Dale), and an eccentric religious leader Donald (Tom Green), Obi plans to take a daring adventure into the heart of the Earth and steal the most precious power source on the planet in order to save her people on the moon.  Unfortunately for her she’ll have to combat Vril Adolf Hitler (also Kier) and his monsters and madmen on an adventure like none other.

If you enjoyed the original film, this one is just as bat-shit crazy but you get Kier in two of his best roles in years, pet dinosaurs, and everything you didn’t know you wanted in a Nazi fantasy film.  Director Timo Vuorensola returns for the sequel and crafts a film in the same vein as Big Trouble in Little China, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai Across the Eight Dimension, or The Golden Child.  Although the film is extremely funny it never veers into campy territory which is why it (and its predecessor) are so effective and entertaining.

The only real gripe I have with the film is that there isn’t enough of Stephanie Paul as the Vril President.  She has so few scenes in the film that her absence is totally a missed opportunity.  This being said, the film is still very entertaining and one not to be missed…unless of course you are one of those few weirdos who didn’t love the first film.

Film Review: MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2014)

Ten years after the events depicted in the original film Monsters (2010) the “Infected Zones” have spread over the entire world creating a global epidemic.  In Monsters: Dark Continent (2014) the Army must put together a new type of soldier to combat the growing threat but the soldiers in this film who are sent into the Middle East to help stop the problem have more than just giant monsters to contend with as dangers lurk in every corner and in every shadow in this war film in which the giant monsters take a back seat to the insurgency of man. 

Written by Tom Green and Jay Basu this is a film that puts the audience right in the middle of the war in the Middle East.  The group of soldiers is made up of mostly rookies who have never spent a tour of duty facing the giants head on.  Leading the group is Noah Frater (Johnny Harris) who volunteers to go on yet another tour avoiding to return home to his family because the only war he knows how to deal with is on the battlefield.  But as he and his group of men go deeper into the trenches he soon learns that everything that he has ever known both in terms of the giant monsters and the human monsters that he’s used to fighting is about to be turned upside down.

As usual, the biggest problem with the film is the fact that the cast is huge and for the most part they are all cannon fodder.  Unlike the original film which was very intimate and focused on the two main characters for most of the running time of the film, this film has too many characters to get to know (at least until most of them are killed off).  The film also tries to use the monsters as a background element forcing you to follow the more human conflict in the film.  This tactic worked well for the original film where the cast is much smaller but here it seems like the monsters are a wasted element.  Now the monsters are seen more in this film than in the previous film but its more as a sense of “awe” and “wonder” but in a war film this is lost (at least until the cast is dwindled down to a handful of characters).

Directed by Green himself, the film is not an entirely bad film but it does lack the ambiance and awe of Gareth Edwards original film even as it opens the possibilities of future films set in a world of giant monsters.