Iron Sky [Blu-Ray]

On the audio commentary and in the "Making of" included with the Blu-Ray release of Finnish/Australian co-production Iron Sky, director Timo Vuorensola and story collaborator Jarmo Puskala discuss their previous "success" with Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning and the process of following it up. Having nothing internal motivating them to create a work of meaning, they brainstormed ideas in as superficial and male a capacity as possible, denoting the hilarity and impropriety of "Moon Nazis." No mention is made of political motivators or broad social indicators. Instead, they talk about the obstacles of making a bigger budget movie and snicker about dressing up a roomful of blonde German kids as Nazis and making them salute. Indirectly, this is the perfect representation of Iron Sky itself. It takes the banal and obvious approach of mocking the United States while revelling in its smug, childish impropriety, making jokes about Nazi ideology and bleaching a coloured man ― or "spook," as he refers to himself ― and having him salute to Hitler. The story, wherein a politically driven mission to the moon finds a black man (Christopher Kirby) in the middle of a Nazi compound, is as deliberately absurd as it is standard for anyone familiar with B-movie drive-in cinema of the '70s. There's some pointed commentary on the good intentions of the National Socialist Party, as juxtaposed with a Sarah Palin-esque American president keen on political malfeasance and eventual greed (there's helium-3 on the moon!), which all feels weirdly obvious. It's the excessive broad jokes and ham-fisted approach that make this deliberately irreverent work seem so bland and familiar. The Nazis are astounded by cellphone technology and much hilarity is extracted from the situational humour of a coloured man interacting with Nazis. Fortunately, the green screen Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow animation is aesthetically consistent and cleverly rendered, giving us something pretty to look at while a bunch of glorified teenagers spew their B.S. onto an overpriced canvas.