It's the Amazing Story of Flash Gordon! And his strange Adventure through the land of animation, are they trying to be Heavy-Metal or Superman from the 1940s?
Okay so it's a little unfair to compare it to Heavy-Metal as this film predates Heavy-Metal but the two do have some similar art styles.
It's part of that weird group of Animation that's trying to do a lot of photo realistic art styles mixed in with World War II and a lot more adult themes. But it still looks like something out of the old Superman cartoons, especially when you have Flash Gordon's love interests involved. She's pretty much Lois Lane with slightly different hair.
So it's 1939 and Flash Gordon is in the wrong country at the wrong time. Germans have begun bombing Poland, and Flash looks for some random guy in a building. I assume it's somebody he knows but the movie doesn't really tell us. Flash finds the random man in a bombed-out building who tells him to remember a particular name and to get out of here before he blows up from the bombs. Then we see Flash in an aeroplane talking with this reporter lady. The two of them get chatting before their plane is hit by a bunch of meteorites, they managed to escape the plane but a volcano explodes and for some reason they run into a cave.
Now I'm no volcano expert.
In fact I'm not an expert on anything, but if I saw a puddle of lava flowing towards me the last thing I want to do is run into a cave. For one thing the lava could overflow in the cave and just burn you alive. But even if that doesn't happen, the lava is going to cause a lot of fire and you're going to run out of oxygen real quickly.
That's the say nothing of the mass of heat that will most likely destroy you within seconds or the sulfur and Mercury created from the magma itself. Once again not a volcano expert, I could have gotten most of the information wrong. But I'm pretty sure they be dead. I bet a whole $2 on it!
Anyways Flash and his star reporter girl (named ''Dale'') ends up on the ship of some Russian (or polish, I can't remember) dude called Zhukov. Or maybe it was Zarkov, I can't entirely remember. They have to go to a planet called Mongo because the people on this planet are attacking the Crazy Russian man and may destroy the Earth. Or at least this is what our dear doctor says. But Im suspicious of him. He has a doomsday weapon just sitting on his ship. Only supervillains have doomsday weapons!* Well that and massive superpowers claiming to be democracies, even though there ruled by council's of men in a glorified Republican system.
They arrive on planet and have to engage a few other ships in a type of ''Star'' ''War'' with laser beams, explosions and a strange floating city off to the side.
Their ship then crashes and the three of them are captured by gorilla man. They're all taken prisoner to some mysterious shrine and try to make their great escape. While escaping they encounter some strange Lion-man who looks like he's out of The Wizard of Oz. He's running away from the princess of Emperor Ming. The princess for some reason instantly falls in love with Flash Gordon. I guess it's not that big a mystery, I mean just look at the man. He's built like a swimsuit model.
Flash Gordon and his friends are captured again, but they're taken to a super City run by emperor Ming. The emperor introduces himself and tells Flash Gordon that he and the lion are going to be slaves in a mine somewhere.
I don't understand why he has slave mining when he has a bunch of robots at his disposal. Seems to be easier just to use the robots to get the resources, but who knows, maybe he's a Communist and vast technology and slavery go hand-in-hand.
Or maybe he's a fascist, after all he's aiding the Nazis back on Earth.
This is where we get a weird part of the film for me, I don't have a problem with being told that mythical character is the biggest of the bad or the most powerful of threats facing Humanity. But the second you start putting them against real life enemies of all decent civilization. Then you become secondary. I can't look at Ming and think that he's the biggest threat when Hitler was literally marching through Europe.
But none of this matters for the moment. Flash Gordon and the lion have to escape from imprisonment and they'll have to use the princess as a hostage, meanwhile Zarkov has to work in the shadows to discover exactly what Ming is up to. Dale the reporter lady is just kind of sitting around in a Harem somewhere.
We get to a strange part of the movie where Flash Gordon and Friends encounter this Robin Hood gang of weirdos. The scene doesn't really go anywhere because they get kidnapped by a bunch of winged people about a minute after,
And it's here that we meet one of the more interesting characters, a prince of the flying Sky City or as I like to refer to him:''laughing Fat-Man Thor''
Ming in an attempt to capture his daughter destroys the flying City and creates (unbeknownst to him) an alliance between Thor, The Lion, Flash Gordon and The Robin Hood man.
So Gordon and pals head off to Ming's Palace after convincing a bunch of roots to kill some Moeman.
A fight then ensues between Flash Gordon and Ming as part of some sort of trial system where the victor of royalty decides the outcome. Ming's a cocky fella who doesn't believe he can fail. So he takes up this Challenge and fights Flash Gordon. Of course he'll fail, but it seems Ming's not as dumb as he first let on. For the person Flash was fighting wasn't the emperor but a robot. Ming escapes the planet and vows to fight another day.
Than Flash Gordon has to destroy a supercomputer to make sure that this planet's doesn't collide with Earth. It seems the planet Mongo is some sort of satellite that can be proposed throughout the Universe and used as some sort of Mega weapon.
Flash and his companions win the day and he's confronted with the Grim reality that he can never return to Earth. What's Flash Gordon's response:
''Earth with all it problems, that was reality. Mongo with its Strange Life and wild adventure, That's our dream!''
I love the optimism of Flash Gordon. He's the greatest example of taking the world's most bitter lemon and turning it into the most succulent of lemonade.
Conclusion.
Is this movie worth watching? To a general audience I would say... No. It's a bit slow, the voice acting is subpar, animation is very choppy at some points and It's half an hour too long. I'd say the people that would get the most out of this film are fans of Flash Gordon, old Superman cartoons fans and animation Geeks might get a kick out of some of the old penciling and colouring techniques that were so prevalent in medium range cartoons of the day.
But most of all it recommended to ''Filmation'' fans. If you enjoy camping shows like ''He-man'' than this movie is right up your alley.
This was my introduction to the world of Flash Gordon and I've got to admit I'm intrigued. I want to see more of the world and more backstory to all the different races of people and creatures that populate the planet I want to see just how insane some of the Avengers can get.
Also watching this I couldn't believe just how much Star Wars had taken directly out of Flash Gordon, from the evil emperor to the giant planet size doomsday weapon, magical energy and strange creatures.
*I was wrong about Zarkov he had a doomsday weapon but he never used it on the planet and he never turned evil. I was wrong about him.
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