Flash Gordon-review

The power of Christ compels you

Wow! If there is anyone with the nostalgia for 80s cheese I got a movie for you.  “Flash Gordon” comes at you from 1980 with a soundtrack by rock group Queen and enough bad effects you’ll think you’re watching the live action movie of “Popeye”.  But where “Popeye caused me to want to join Helen Keller in being both deaf and blind this movie actually has fun parts to it. 

Red Bull gave Bluto wiiings.

Flash Gordon is a football player that gets kidnapped with his love interest, travel journalist Dale Arden, by a mad scientist played by none other then Topol, the actor that is famous for playing Tevye in “Fiddler on The Roof”.  They take a rocket to planet Mongo where Ming the Merciless, played by the always awesome Max Von Sydow is the Emperor and rules with an iron fist.  Can Flash and his friends escape the tyrannical rule of Emperor Ming? 

Where do I begin?  This movie is funny and cheesy in almost all sense of the word.  The effects are piss poor.  There are hawk men with huge metal wings that run around like filthy Vikings.  The dialogue is so delightfully over the top they HAD to know it was as campy as the 1960s “Batman” television show.  When Flash’s love interest Dale runs into a death pit as Flash is mid fight only to scream “Flash I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save Earth!” I think I laughed myself a bit insane.  Could they have found a time, other than combat to have Dale exposit that bit of information?

Timothy Dalton, former James Bond, now plant planet prince.

Max Von Sydow, who has been in some amazing movies in his time doesn’t skimp out on his performance as a sci-fi villain. If you are a fan of “MST3K” you’ll love this shit.  If you have children younger than 10 they will like it.  Other wise it’s just weird and you’ll probably find it stupid. Hell, I enjoyed it on some level and I thought it was stupid.  If you are curious give it a shot.