Guilty Pleasures: Iron Sky

In 1945, an increasingly desperate Third Reich hatched a plan for survival if the war was lost. The best of Germany’s scientists used experimental spacecrafts to send a large group of men, women and children to the dark side of the moon to create a colony. For over seventy years they lived in secret, building a new army and waiting for their chance at revenge on the Earth. In the year 2018, that time has come. This is the plot basis for Iron Sky, today’s Guilty Pleasure review.

 I am honestly torn on this movie. It delivered what it promised. We got an invasion from Moon Nazis. It was violent and ridiculous. The special effects were even quite good. The problem I have concerns its sub-theme of political commentary. Allow me to explain further.

No Fraulein, the Earth is no place for a beautiful woman such as yourself. 

Just wait for me here on this freezing, airless, lifeless ball of rock until I get back.

The near-future world of the United States of America isn’t that much different from today. The biggest changes are an improved space program, with renewed interest in space exploration (i.e. the moon… which inevitably sets up the plot) and the president looks remarkably like former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin! We learn that the President is up for re-election (strange since 2018 isn’t a presidential election year, but I digress) and is anxiously seeking an edge in the polls. This obsession toward her image rather than for the well being of the nation was obvious political commentary… which would have been fine if it had stopped there. But it didn’t.

 Hey Frank, does your gas mask smell like cheese too?

So on an aforementioned exploration of the moon, a couple of astronauts accidentally discover the Nazi moon colony. Unfortunately for them, at the same time they are discovered by “space Nazi troopers.” They kill one astronaut and bring the other in for questioning… only to discover that the surviving astronaut is an African American man! Without giving too much more away, this foreign astronaut paves the way for a few of the higher up Moon Nazis to infiltrate the United States government by making friends with the President (who is oblivious to their affiliations) and supplementing her re-election campaign with ideals and slogans associated with the fascism, mainly a strong emphasis on extreme patriotism and building a stronger America. The forced political commentary actually gets worse from there, leading to a weird ending that I’m sure seemed somehow poetic and ironic to the filmmakers, but left me wondering what the hell just happened and why.

 Apparently the Moon Nazis' attempt at intimidating their enemies

 is to place boobs on the front of their spaceships.

The problem I have is that they took a film with a ridiculous comedic premise and then tried to push this political commentary. It doesn’t work that way. It creates a very serious tone to a movie about Moon Nazis! Imagine if Spongebob Squarepants had a very special episode about molestation. Yeah, it works about as well as that. If they had left it with “President Palin” being a media whore more concerned about her image than running the country that would have been fine. However, this whole Nazis in the government thing and all of its implications about public approval desperation and comparisons of the Third Reich to our own political factions… it was all too much. Political satire works best with subtlety and Iron Sky really missed the mark on that concept.

The fortress was either going to be shaped like a swastika or a smiley face, 

but the high command thought the latter wouldn't be subtle enough.

If you can get past the political commentary, there are some really enjoyable aspects to the movie. Like I said, the movie delivered what it promised. You do indeed get Moon Nazis trying to invade Earth and various battles both on our planet and in space. That stuff is great, though it’s a long wait to get there.

 Those of you who forgot to bring their own toilet paper 

will be subjected to using moon rocks in its place.

As I mentioned, what Iron Sky did best lied in their visuals. The special effects were amazingly good, especially for such a b-movie premise. The space Nazi outfits were classic World War II stormtrooper uniforms modified for survival complete with menacing gas mask helmets. The technology of the Moon Nazis was genius. Consider the height of progress from circa 1945 Germany and then imagine if it advanced solely from that point, purely for the purposes of space survival and warfare. Everything looks more mechanical than computerized, almost steampunk at times. The CGI used in the movie was surprisingly fluid; it didn’t look super-imposed, fake or blocky. There was clearly a lot of hard work and time put into the movie effects and it really showed.

In all, I would give Iron Sky the Guilty Pleasure rating of 2 & 3/4 Space Zeppelins out of 4. Its worth checking out, but I think it could have been a lot better than it was.