Subject: Retrospective: Flash Gordon (1980)

From: Dragan Antulov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 21:11:47 -0000

FLASH GORDON (1980)

A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2002

Appreciation of some films can go full circle. The author of this review
experienced such phenomenon with FLASH GORDON, 1980 science fiction epic
directed by Mike Hodges. The very first time I saw this film I had expected
something in the same league with STAR WARS. Despite being slightly
disappointed, I still considered FLASH GORDON to be great. Only a few years
later I watched this film for the second time. The movie suddenly started
looking so bad that I had to put my disappointment on paper, which resulted in
one of my first movie reviews. Then, many years passed and I watched FLASH
GORDON again. This time the experience was quite different - I actually started
liking this film again and appreciating it as a remarkable piece of filmmaking,
although for quite another reason.

FLASH GORDON is based on the comic books by Alex Raymond, first adapted to big
screen in 1930s as a movie serials starring Buster Crabbe in lead role. Those
movie serials are now best known as the most important source of inspiration for
STAR WARS. In return, success of George Lucas' film inspired famous Italian
producer Dino de Laurentiis to make his own science fiction epic, this time much
closer to the original. Task was given to screenwriters Lorenzo Semple Jr. and
Michael Allin who adapted the original characters and situation for the more
modern setting.

Plot begins when Ming the Merciless (played by Max Sydow), evil and seemingly
omnipotent emperor of Mongo, start using his super-technology to create series
of earthquakes, tornadoes and similar disasters on planet Earth. Dr. Hans
Zharkov (played by Topol) is discredited NASA scientist who built a spaceship in
order to investigate extraterrestrial source of those disasters. He finds an
unwilling crew for such endeavour in the form of New York Jets quarterback Flash
Gordon (played by Sam J. Jones) and travel
agent Dale Arden (played by Melody Anderson) whose plane has just crash-landed
in scientist's back yard. Their spaceship blasts off, gets sucked by Imperial
Vortex and lands on planet Mongo. Earthlings are quickly brought to Imperial
Court where Flash leaves bad impression on Ming, resulting in immediate death
sentence. Luckily, Ming's daughter Princess Aura (played by Ornella Muti) likes
Flash and arranges his escape. Flash lands on planet Arboria and starts
convincing feuding Ming's vassals to forget their differences and unite against
the evil tyrant.

FLASH GORDON originally failed at the box-office and fared even worse among
critics. Younger viewers who approach this film for the first time are probably
going to find many reasons for that. For the most time, dialogue in the film is
plain terrible. This is especially the case when the dialogue is spoken by two
leads - Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson. Those two performances are pure
disaster and it is quite understandable why those two actors failed to make any
significant impression in their subsequent careers. Jones, obviously cast more
by his looks than by his acting ability, given new definition to the phrase
"wooden and uninspiring". Melody Anderson fares only slightly better, but only
in scenes where she doesn't appear with Jones and thus show complete lack of
chemistry. Terrible miscasting is followed by
something which should be unforgivable crime to all those who grew up after
JURASSIC PARK - more money being spent on costumes than on special effects.

Yet, despite those shortcomings, FLASH GORDON not only works, but actually turns
out to be very entertaining experience. The reason for that should be found in
something very simple - filmmakers didn't take material seriously and instead of
science fiction epic this film should be approached as comedy. Intentional or
unintentional, the film is pure fun, with plenty of hilarious moments and
memorable scenes. First, there are plenty of truly eye-pleasing scenes - Gilbert
Taylor's photography provides a lot of flashy colours when depicting psychedelic
Mongo skies, exotic costumes and even more exotic Imperial Guard uniforms. Then,
there is musical score by "Queen", which reached almost legendary status despite
not being considered the best achievement of that group. Using rock music
instead of classical scores in science fiction film provides somewhat surreal
impact that would help viewers in getting into mood necessary for enjoying this
film.

But the most memorable thing about FLASH GORDON is the actors, each of them
making a terrific job. Almost unrecognisable Max von Sydow simply chews scenery
and obviously has a lot of fun as the incarnation of pure evil. Ornella Muti as
Princess Aura is another great addition to this film - with sensual voice and
revealing costumes she simply oozes sex appeal, but that performance also
underlines a great flaw in the film - Melody Anderson in the role of her
romantic rival. Topol is also very good, but not as good as Brian Blessed and
Timothy Dalton, respected British thespians who obviously enjoyed opportunity to
play
something completely different and much sillier from stuffy characters in period
dramas. Director Mike Hodges does a very good job in handling plot and keeping
frenetic pace in the film, and shows how he could handle material so different
from his better known films like GET CARTER.

Of course, hard core science fiction fans might still wince at this film and
those who like original comic books are probably going to prefer STAR WARS. But
for most viewers FLASH GORDON is the reason why phrases like "guilty pleasure"
entered vocabularies.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

Review written on November 5th 2002

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society

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X-RT-RatingText: 7/10