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Category:    Home > Reviews > Action > Exploitation > WW2 > Nazis > Iron Sky - The Director's Cut (2002/E1 Blu-ray w/DVD Steelbook Edition)

Iron Sky - The Director's Cut (2002/E1 Blu-ray w/DVD Steelbook Edition)


Picture: A/B- Sound: A/B- Extras: B+ Film: C+



Nazis from space terrorize earth in Timo Vuorensola's Iron Sky - seen here in its full glory in an exclusive directors cut, complete with collectible steel book packaging and a very cool 32-page book about the conceptual art. The film itself is twenty minutes longer than its initial release and is complete with new visual effects, new music from Laibach, and tons of new politically incorrect humor.


At the end of World War 2, a secret Nazi space program evaded destruction by fleeing to the Dark Side of the Moon. During their 70 years of secrecy, the Nazis constructed a gigantic space fortress with a massive armada of flying saucers. When African American astronaut James Washington (Christopher Kirby) accidentally discovers the base, The Moon Fuhrer (Udo Kier) has decided that this is the right time to retake Earth and starts to prepare the invasion. Two Nazi officers, Klaus Adler (Gotz Otto) and the gorgeous Renate Richter (Julia Dietze), travel to Earth to prepare the invasion. Soon, American skies are full of flying saucers and start firing upon earth. It's time for the President (played by Sarah Paul who remarkably resembles Sarah Palin) to take a stand in her own best interests and fights back.


This movie reminds me a little bit of Machete, Snakes on a Plane and even The Human Centipede as an exploitation film that tries a little too hard to be remembered as cult and worked better as a two minute trailer than a nearly two hour long film. After about the first twenty minutes, the concept gets old and the characters increasingly hard to relate to. It almost would have worked better as a Saturday Night Live gag.


I did find myself in awe over the visual effects, which for the low budget look pretty good on Blu-ray. The massive Nazi armada is massive in scope and the design of the spaceships is very similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with that 50s movie-era feel. With the exception of the Nazi commanders, the soldiers generally look like Stormtroopers from Star Wars or the Nazis seen in Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, which I didn't mind too much. Aside from its excellent look though, the film is over the top and doesn't quite succeed in its execution. At times, it takes a triumph of the will to make it through to the end of the film


The 1080p high definition transfer is crisp and clear with a 2:35:1 aspect ratio and is complemented by a DTS-HD 5.1 lossless Master Audio track. The DVD has a 5.1 Dolby Digital Track and you can definitely tell a difference in sound clarity between the two as well as in the anamorphically enhanced DVD image that is also weaker. There are both German and English language versions of the film too. Extras include a Making of Documentary (90 minutes), Photo Gallery, and Teasers.



- James Harland Lockhart V


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