'Iron Sky: The Coming Race' Is Goofier Than Its Predecessor

Iron Sky: The Coming Race is the sequel to the 2012 comic-science-fiction film Iron Sky, which is about an American manned mission to the far side of the Moon that discovered a secret base constructed and occupied by Nazis who fled to the Moon after their defeat in World War II and who have been developing and building a space fleet since.  This long-anticipated (not really) follow-up is set nearly three decades after the events of the first movie, and follows Obi Washington (Lara Rossi), the daughter of one of the original astronauts that first encountered the secret Nazi moon base.

After the invasion of the Moon Nazis triggered a nuclear war that made Earth uninhabitable, the remnants of humanity – Earth survivors and former Moon Nazis alike – have rallied together in the rapidly deteriorating Nazi base on the Moon.  When Obi learns that the key to mankind’s survival lies in the center of the Earth, she leads a team composed of Russian pilot Sasha (Vladmir Burlakob), brawler childhood friend Malcolm (Kit Dale), and cult leader Donald (Tom Green) and some of his followers in a mission to the subterranean world where they encounter the Vril, reptilian aliens who came to Earth during the time of the dinosaurs and who had paraded as the world’s elite and leaders throughout human history – including the Nazi leader himself, Adolf Hitler (Udo Kier).

Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an objectively bad film.  But there’s no surprise there.  It was expected to be so; the first Iron Sky movie was bad, too, after all.  But just like Iron Sky, Iron Sky: The Coming Race generates appeal from how crazy, nonsensical, and dumb it is.  Such is the crux of so-bad-it’s-good entertainment, which the Iron Sky movies can be.

Moreover, at a personal level, the premise of the Iron Sky franchise somewhat but genuinely grabs the imagination of the part of me who is fascinated with Red Alert 2, silly conspiracy theories, and Harry Turtledove-style alt-history fiction.

Iron Sky: The Coming Race is definitely goofier than its predecessor.  On top of Moon Nazis, it also showcases the Hollow Earth, dinosaurs, reptilian people, a cult founded upon the life and work of Steve Jobs, the Holy Grail, the indestructibility of the Nokia 3310, and other over-the-top concepts.  The enjoyment that can be derived from the amusement of these things will, of course, vary from person to person.  But to those who come into the film knowing exactly what they would get from it, it will probably suffice.

The mid-credits scene should also generate some anticipation for the third installment.  (SPOILER) It reveals that the Mars colonizers first teased after the credits of 2012’s Iron Sky are the Soviets.  I hope the filmmakers can come up with something adequately fun and original from that.

In the end, it is apparent that Iron Sky: The Coming Race is a couple of years too late to be an effective sequel (it’s the result of not having any financial backing; this film had to rely on crowdfunding), as some of its jokes and beats are outdated.  Nevertheless, as a whole, it turned out being more or less the bad but watchable, sometimes interesting movie that I thought it would be.