Iron Sky: The Coming Race

Cast: Lara Rossi, Vladimir Burlakov, and Udo Kier

Director: Timo Vuorensola  

92 minutes (15) 2019

101 Films Blu-ray region B

Rating: 7/10

Review by Christopher Geary

Iron Sky (2012) was a knockabout, positively ramshackle pulp satire that sometimes feels like a remake, but isn’t. Showcasing survivalism of the mightiest WW2 fanaticism as a lingering threat (as in They Saved Hitler’s Brain, 1963), it’s a flipside to politically conscious sci-fi like Harry Horner’s Red Planet Mars (1952); and a geek gala from Timo Vuorensola, the Finnish director of cult genre parody Star Wreck (2005). A feast of Naziploitation set in 2018, Iron Sky began with a black American astronaut as POW in a German secret base on the dark side of the Moon. Achtung! From ‘Swastika City’, der Gotterdammerung flies as a 21st century WMD, ordered by new loony Fuhrer (Udo Keir). Brave soldier Adler (Gotz Otto, ‘Stamper’ from Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies) pilots the Luna UFO to NYC, with his bride-to-be scientist Renate (Julia Dietze) as a stowaway sidekick.

They face-off against a Sarah Palinesque/ teabag US president, and the femme fatale PR manager who mimics the existing spoofs of those ‘Hitler reacts to...’ clips; infamously re-subtitled from Hirschbiegel’s Downfall (2004), then being favoured - ad nauseum - by You Tube jesters. It’s a moment of recycled japery that is dizzying as a twisty pop-art meme. Even with formalities of prep for an absurdist Fourth Reich’s long-delayed invasion fleet, led by flagship Siegfried, launching a meteor blitzkrieg of Earth set to Wagner’s anthemic ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, this is not seriously pro-Nazi propaganda, of course, as it gamely spoofs Independence Day, and pokes fun at all national warmonger brands.

Its feverishly comical delirium seems crazy as a Dr Strangelove + Mars Attacks combo. Sharper and wittier than Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, much better fun (as the proverbial moon menace movie) than the crappy pseudocumentary Apollo 18, the various skits of Iron Sky deliver a delightfully farcical twilight of the gods last gleaming and tells us this is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but a twinkly-eyed wink; and a space-war spectacle of hysterical alt. future history that could have made Roger Corman turn a shade of Hulk-green with envy.

Crowd-funded sequel Iron Sky: The Coming Race is set 20 years after the apocalyptic war. The bitten sphere of the broken Moon was never the same after the nukes fell, and the remnants of humanity finding refuge on the dark side are reluctant to welcome some Russian refugees arriving at the crumbling Moonbase sanctuary where Lunar-quakes rock the closed system. The resident i-religion followers of digital cloud-master Steve Jobs live in fear losing wi-fi and bricked devices, yet their beliefs are not simply ‘intelligent design’ when they claim to be flawless.

Elsewhere in the decaying colony, the poverty of inequality crushes human hope until the leader’s daughter, brave engineer Obi Washington (Lara Rossi), teams up with annoying warrior-wannabe and newcomer Sasha (Vladimir Burlakov), and a hunky local lunk-head, lucky Star Trek red-shirted Malcolm (Kit Dale), for a somewhat Gilliam-esque UFO flight. They discover a mysterious race of shape-shifting reptiles, alien Vril, and a hollow-Earth mythology offers salvation, but a planetary nuclear winter extends ice-sheets far beyond Antarctica, where their last operational spacecraft enters this promised land, a splendid ERB-styled underworld.

There’s a parody sketch of the ‘Last Supper’, a tableaux featuring humanoid Vril versions of Caligula, the Pope, Stalin, Palin-ish POTUS, Maggie Thatcher, Korean Kim, Zuckerberg, bin Laden, and Hitler, chow and chatter with similarly despicable (upper echelon) leaders or ghastly celeb types, mostly dead ones. Highly amusing action effects include our band of plucky heroes on a mission to steal a ‘holy grail’ that powers a Pellucidarean miniature Sun, followed by a dinosaur chariot-race, and later the Fuhrer (Udo Kier playing two Nazi roles) riding a T-Rex into an unexpected kung fu showdown, fighting against a proverbial Amazonian woman on the Moon.

In place of the first movie’s clunky post-war tech and steam-punk retro influences, Iron Sky 2 explores a witty parody of von Daniken’s ancient ETs, remixing satirical skiffy with hectic adventures of the decidedly Ripleyesque/ Lara Croft mannered heroine. One droll ditty playing over the closing credits recalls that comically mismatched ‘Benson, Arizona’ theme song from John Carpenter’s classic Dark Star (1974). The epilogue of destination Mars sets up another sequel, of course. Let’s hope that creative director Vuorensola can muster up enough financial support for it.