Iron Sky: The Coming Race (Finland, 2019)

Donald "The Fascist" Trump and

Iron Sky II – The Coming Race:

If you haven't seen Iron Sky (2012 / trailer), the movie that preceded this one, do so. Wonderfully tasteless, at times sweet, still timely (in reflecting American political bent), broadly but generally well-acted and funny as hell, the Finnish film deserved to be the hit that it was and can easily be re-watched time and again. We did so recently for [only] the third time, but then, we caught it the first time during its initial cinema run over a decade ago.

 

Jesus never made it into the movie*:

* For that, seven year's earlier, in 2012, he did fight zombies in Fist of Jesus. 

As to be expected when a movie is a hit, it wasn't long before a sequel was announced. What took a lot longer was getting the sequel, Iron Sky: The Coming Race, made and released, as the production suffered endless delays and problems. It ended up taking seven years before The Coming Race hit the screens — unluckily without Jesus — and then, unlike its predecessor, it tanked. And it bombed so badly that the main production company, Blind Spot Pictures, and Iron Sky Universe, the owners of the franchise itself, both subsequently declared bankruptcy. Thus, one can pretty much rest assured that neither Iron Sky 3: The Ark (uninteresting teaser), announced online, or Iron Sky: The End Game (the narrative of which is teased in The Coming Race's end credits sequence) will ever see the light of day.

First trailer to

Iron Sky – The Coming Race:

The Coming Race transpires 29 years after the events in Iron Sky, which (Spoiler!) ends with the Earth falling to nuclear war, the only survivors being those humans on the Nazi base on the dark side of the moon, the heroes and nice couple of that movie, Afro American model cum astronaut James Washington (Christopher Kirby of Daybreakers [2009], Upgrade [2018 / trailer], and Blood Vessel [2019 / trailer]) and good gal reformed Nazi Renate Richter (Julia Dietze also of Monrak [2017 / trailer], Bullet [2014 / trailer] and the pointless and pointlessly pimped out remake of Room 205 [2007], 205: Room of Fear [2011/ trailer]) smooching away amidst the ruins of the moonbase as the nuclear bombs crisscross the Earth. (Causing an older German woman to stand up and ask, "Are you aware you are kissing a Black man?")

 

In 2047, James is gone, and the old and ill and disillusioned Renate, appears to be the head of the now overpopulated and falling-apart moonbase, which is under the sway of Jobsism, a religion based on the words and wisdom of Steve Jobs and Apple led by the Jobs-clone Donald (Drew Barrymore's ex-husband Tom Green of Freddy Got Fingered [2001 / trailer] and Bethany [2017 / trailer]). When Obi Washington (Lara Rossi of You (Us) Me [2014 / trailer] and Robin Hood [2018 / trailer]), the daughter of James and Renate, and the base's all-purpose handywoman, helps save an incoming Russian refugee ship, she subsequently meets a few of the passengers, including Iron Sky's Wolfgang Kortzfleisch (Euro-actor icon Udo Kier of Shamlos (1968 / scene), Mark of the Devil (1970 / trailer), Flesh for Frankenstein (1973 / trailer), Blood for Dracula (1974 / trailer), Trauma (1976 / trailer), Spermula (1976 / French trailer), Insel der blutigen Plantage (1983 / trailer), Europa [1991 / trailer], Blade [1998] and so much more), the moombase's long presumed dead previous Fuehrer, who ultimately reveals that he is a Vril, one of the alien reptilian race that inhabit the Earth's hollow core...

 

Long story short: Obi, refugee-ship pilot Sasha (Vladimir Burlakov of The Darker the Lake [2022 / trailer]), security office Malcolm ("martial arts expert, fashion designer, gay activist, OnlyFans male monster" Kit Dale [YouTube]") and some of the Jobsists fly to the underground city of Agartha to steal the Holy Grail, the vessel of the city's never-ending energy supply, Vrilia, in the hope of saving their moon colony. Naturally, the shit hits the fan everywhere, all the time.

 

As bizarre and over-the-top as Iron Sky is, it is also a well-made movie that successfully satirizes numerous aspects of American culture, politics, sexual politics, concepts and thought patterns, taking the piss out of everything with a continuous series of grotesqueries and hilarious jabs, many of which remain valid today. For all its stupidity, it is also an amazingly insightful movie. Unluckily, the same cannot be said of the sequel — which doesn't mean The Coming Race isn't enjoyable on its own terms.

The Coming Race replaces the contemporary political subtexts of Iron Sky with one of the more popular conspiracy theories currently, that of an alien reptilian race that pulls all the strings — a fictional concept originally introduced in 1871 in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel Vril: The Power of the Coming Race that has since come to be taken as true by many, especially those US Americans who vote Republican — to create a fun, joke-filled and kinetic action movie. The narrative uses a lot of tweaked but timeworn movie clichés, which makes the movie comes across almost like a contemporary reboot of any number of hollow-Earth movies, like At the Earth's Core (1976 / trailer) or Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959 / trailer or 2008 / trailer) or — to a far lesser extent — What Waits Below (1984 / trailer).

Structurally, once too often it relies on voiceover to keep the viewer informed about things, past and present and relevant and irrelevant, which conveys the feeling that the budgetary problems the production faced cost the movie some scenes. The scattershot script pretty much takes everything and puts it in the blender, which means that a lot happens quickly and there are a lot of throwaway jokes.

In that sense, although it really doesn't throw everything at the wall like, say, Airplane! (1980 / trailer) or the a wasted life fave Top Secret (1984 / trailer) does, the scriptwriter Dalan Musson obviously found no joke too stupid to be included. The three leads don't embarrass themselves as actors and make a likable trio, while Udo Kier, as perhaps to be expected, is spot-on as the duplicitous Kortzfleisch and his far more evil Vril twin brother, Adolf Hitler. Unlike in the first movie but appropriate to her character, Julia Dietze is rather drab and lacking in that special aura she exuded in Iron Sky, but is truly is fun to see her attack a tyrannosaurus rex with her high heels. In regards to the CGI, like the first movie it varies in quality and effectiveness, but works on the whole.

The Coming Race pales in every way when compared to Iron Sky, but at the same time it is a bit more fun in an almost kiddy-film way. Kids who like over-the-top and ridiculous movies will probably enjoy the movie as much as any given adult, especially since it basically moves from action scene to action scene without pausing to breathe. Stupid, The Coming Race might be, but it is also action- and laugh-packed, so it has everything needed for an evening's entertainment. About the only thing we here at a wasted life could think of that the movie truly lacks is a nude full frontal of the dim but buff Kit Dale, whom we would bend over for any day.

Director Timo Vuorensola has since gone on to direct Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022 / trailer), the latest and most pointless entry in a franchise created by a pedophile, and the bucket of clichés that is 97 Minutes (2023 / trailer). One hopes that he might one day do something really great again.