Rating: 
Summary: more than a classic - it's just plain fun
Review: Yes, this move does a good job capturing the the feel of the old movie serials. But more importantly, it shows why those serials were so popular: it's a really fun movie!Call it camp, call it retro, call it a trash classic - but you'll find yourself cheering for Flash and his friends as they fight the evil forces of Ming the Merciless. The sound track by Queen is outstanding in its own right, and adds a lot to the adrenaline level.
Rating:
Summary: A Camp Classic!
Review: Sam J. Jones as Flash Gordon is the ultimate football player ... and space hero! Max Von Sydow chews scenery ... well, er ... snacks on it, at least! Topol as Hans Zarkov is a stitch! And a young Timothy Dalton (pre - James Bond) plays Prince Barron! If you're looking for one cult comedy with a sci fi punch and music by Queen, you'll find it here! Pure popcorn brain candy!
Rating:
Summary: FLASH! AAHHH!
Review: A great movie for Sci-Fi lovers! It has it all; an evil sadistic ruler from outer-space(Max von Sydow); the beautiful, helpless lady in distress(Melanie Anderson); and the only person that could possibly save the Earth, our hero, Flash Gordon(Sam J. Jones). I loved it. I admit, it's not exactly Star Wars, but it's a good, fun, sci-fi adventure.
This movie, in my opinion, speaking as a father, is for older audiences. Contains bloody violence, and sensuality.
Rating:
Summary: The future was going to look like this
Review: This film is a visual wonder: a perfect recreation of the future, as people thought it was going to look, back in the 1930s. The pastel colours of comic books printed on pulp dominate, with sets that make no attempt at realism. Instead we get floating fortresses, crystal castles, rocket ships that look like plump V2s, except for the racey sports car fins. And the clothes! Collars are generally worn all the way up past the ears, while other characters sport shoulderpads as wide and dangerous as the scythes on Boudicca's chariot. Gentlemen prefer tights. (And at least some of these gentlemen prefer gentlemen.) Director Hodges and his design team are absolutely right to set this in the imaginary future, the way it was supposed to be, rather than "modernise" Flash and his mythology. And as the amazing "retro-futuristic" sets line up, like castles in the air, we can't help but be sorry that we didn't make their future turn out that way. Boring modernism took over 20th century taste instead and knocked off all the curves, colours and rococo lines. But this film's defiant aesthetic updates that style to bring us a future we should think about re-introducing. Designer Danilo Donati obviously thinks that less is NOT more; it's a bore. (He's right, of course. It's a great relief in C21 finally to be dancing on modernism's grave - pomo's too; and good riddance, say I.)
The script and acting are the purest camp, especially Sam Jones' performance as football hero Flash, a man who fell out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down, as they used to say. Jones' Flash is so cheerfully dimwitted you'd be excused for thinking he's been playing his footie without a helmet. Except that football has clearly never even mussed up his hair, let alone his bone structure. (And we kiwis and Aussies play our footie without helmets, and our footie players are wits, sages, raconteurs... No, come to think of it, they ARE a bit knocked off.) Milk-fed blonde Melody Anderson is Jones' IQ match as his girlfriend, the boring "good girl" Dale Arden. Though a remarkably pretty woman, Anderson faces three obstacles to making much impact in this film. First, Jones' performance is aimed with the widest and most obvious of winks at a gay audience, and so a girlfriend, though obligatory, is not to be allowed to get too close. Second, Dale Arden has to speak lines like, "Flash! I love you! But we have just 14 minutes left to save the world!" Which Anderson does as well as anyone reasonably can. But third, she has the misfortune to be in the same film as (ahem!) the luscious (gulp) Ornella Muti. Ornella Muti's performance as the Bad Girl (yay!) Princess Aura's, on the other hand, is directed at gentlemen who prefer women (likewise women who prefer women; Muti makes it clear that her slippery young Princess Aura wouldn't mind all that much whether she bedded Flash or Dale)... Another sign of her omnivorous tastes is the scene where her evil parents have her tied up and whipped (possibly a family that needs counselling) in order to make her reveal Flash's last known address. Except that all she does is squirm around, clearly enjoying herself to the hilt. Basically Muti's Princess Aura is sex on a cone, with syrup and macadamia. Pauline Kael once said that Ornella Muti could make strong men groan, just by walking across a room. Yup. A-hrrr'mm. Yup. That'd be right. And Max von Sydow was - never mind his usual gloomy Swedish roles - born to play Ming the Merciless, all sinister amusement and gloating evil. Von Sydow's Ming clearly only wants to enslave the universe for the sheer fun of it; he may be evil, but I can't help feeling Ming's Evil Empire would never be a dull place. And the splendidly silly soundtrack by Queen - "Flash! Wa-hahhh!" - underlines the generally camp aesthetic. And while I feel that a little bit of camp goes a bloody long way ("A little/More than a little is by much too much") this film is saved from the knowing tedium of, for example, the post-Burton Batman films by being relentlessly visually inventive, energetic, and leavening its silliness with cheerfulness. The DVD doesn't offer any extras, which is a pity because Michael Hodges is an interesting director (he also wrote and directed _Get Carter_ - the cool Michael Caine original, not the Sly Stallone remake), and I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on a commentary track. But even without extras _Flash Gordon_ in DVD format is a great discovery, or re-discovery. It's much under-rated: one of the best and most enjoyable sci-fi films of the 1980s, one that I enjoyed a lot more than _Return of the Jedi_, when that came out two years later. Recommended. Cheers! Laon
Rating: 
Summary: Goofy but Affectionate Escapism
Review: "Flash Gordon" has more in common with 1968's "Barbarella" than the comic strip hero of the same name, but still manages to deliver many of the goods expected of campy adult fantasy. Sam Jones is a dopey version of Buster Crabbe's dashing serial hero--fittingly, an over-hormoned football star with a heart that works faster than his brain. Lovely Melody Anderson embodies Dale Arden as a spunky 1930's girl-next-door transplated into the plastic, "modern" 1980s, while sultry Ornella Muti, as Princess Aura, is every adolescent boy's imagining of sex. International stars Topol and Max Von Sydow chew up the scenery as astrophysicist Zarkhov and evil Emperor Ming, respectively, and Peter Wyngarde and ex-James Bond Timothy Dalton do dark turns in secondary roles. The story, laced with PG-rated violence and sexual innuendo, is a tongue-in-cheek rehash of the serials, as Ming ravages Earth until our intrepid heroes rocket to his kingdom to set things straight. This time, they find worlds created with the most elaborate visual effects of the day, some convincing, many not, but all strangely beautiful. If you liked the original, you'll see that most of the swipes are gentle and that as juvenile as the script is, the movie is really aimed at grown-ups. A spirited performance by British TV veteran Brian Blessed and a thumping soundtrack by rock supergroup Queen help make this one memorable.
Rating: 
Summary: FLASH, Ohh-Ohh-Ohh, YOU'RE KILLING ME!
Review: Oh, FLASH GORDON, how bad are you? Let me count the reasons: Bad VISUAL EFFECTS! Bad ACTING! Bad COSTUMES! Bad SCRIPTING! Bad CINEMATOGRAPHY! Bad MUSIC! It cannot be Queen, can it? High Point: GOOD LOOKING WOMEN! Viewpoint: MISS IT! Grade: D-
Rating:
Summary: Almost a forgotten film. Almost!
Review: This film is "almost" forgettable. This film seems to have been slapped together in the wake of Lucas's revolution in sci-fi filmmaking. The script is almost weak, the visual effects are almost there, and Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) almost has a personality. Almost. This film runs to the edge of oblivion, but here is what brings it back from the edge. First, it is visually stunning. They had perfect sets, perfect costumes, and perfect casting. Having seen the original serials, I know of what I speak. The visual impact of this moving is awesome, and many, many, if not all filmmakers can learn a thing or two from the visual aspect of this movie. How to put the set design? Art Deco on LSD seems the only appropriate jumble of words. No, this is not Greg Toland in "Citizen Kane," but it is more along the lines of Fritz Lang's Metropolis or M. Few people know how to use the silver screen, and like a backwards philosopher's tone they create a lot of lead! Second, the soundtrack. We have Queen's electric guitar playing and the raunchy vocals of Freddy Mercury. This film foreshadowed their work on "Highlander." In no way does it detract from the film, but the punch rock rockets the movie along. Third, the score. Listen to the background music, the weird "space noises" reminiscent of "Forbidden Planet." It puts our soul on edge and reinforces the otherness of the alien ships. Plus the wedding music is oddly appropriate-for a space wedding! Fourth, the "before they were stars" factor. Yes, that is Timothy Dalton in those tights! THE DVD: This DVD is an absolutely bare bone DVD with no extras, Easter-eggs, or commentary. My (...) version of Metropolis at least has the movie posters and short cast bios! Something! Anything! All can say is that the copy to DVD is great-no static, scratches, or out of focus.
Rating:
Summary: So then Max says to Ingmar "Forget it, I'm having fun!"
Review: That joke always seems to go through my mind: Max Von Sydow and Ingmar Bergman having this conversation where Bergman invites him to be in "Fanny and Alexander," and Sydow looks at him with that irrevocable silence of his, that all-consuming dignity and intense complexity which he is the master of, which Bergman knows, and that's why he was a Bergman man, and finally, Max says, "Forget it, I'm having fun,(in Hollywood)" and what do you say to a man who's played everyone from Jesus Christ to Ming the Merciless(and is very tall)? You say okay and deal with it.
Of course the conversation probably never happened but the point is, fans of this movie echo that sentiment of Sydow's when they speak to none fans. All my brothers and sisters, do not love this movie in fear any longer. Besides, camp is cool. I still remember being six years old and seeing the awesome cardboard cutout movie stand for Flash Gordon with all the hawkmen as I walked in the theater. If only I could get a good one at e-bay! I had no idea my favorite band, Queen would be singing and playing. Bicycle Race was my favorite song because I wanted a bike.
I mean, where else can you get a sci-fi movie where one of the major best scenes involves the Hero who is a football player who likes to read science books and fly in his spare time and who kicks the bad guys butts playing his own game! The football game in the court of Ming where King Vultan hits the bad guys on the head when no one's looking and the small guys blast the bad guys in the package is a classic! All the while Queen is playing! Yeah! Bring it on!
When movies like Flash Gordon are made -- movies based on a plot as intense and complicated and crazy campy as comic books are, they usually are either entertaining as all get-out or laughably bad.
Then there are some that rise above, like the first Superman and Batman movies, that even have good acting. (As a side note I am really hoping that the Wonder Woman Movie in the works will not be messed up.) Flash Gordon is in the category of good entertainment with a few good plots and morals thrown in for good measure just like any comic book. I think some of the sipersion between people who watch that movie is like that of people who read DC vs. Marvel and the other way around. If you like the X-men and Superman on the other hand, you're more likely to like Flash Gordon then someone who's all DC or all Marvel, but Marvel readers will probably like the realistic, rounded villains like Princess Aura, Vultan and Barron. The old school DC readers will love the dominating evil of Ming. Of course those are just generalizations. Myself, i like both companies.
The actors are who they are -- Sam Jones really isn't bad, he's trying and earnest, but now that I'm older while I know the actress playing Dale Arden says and does things that were typical for the time for a comic book heroine, I do see what my husband and sister mean by the fact she comes across a bit glib. Princess Aura (Ornella Muti) is one of the first villains who wasn;t really totally horrible -- in fact, she's very human as she comes to realize. For Prisoner Fans don't miss one of the number 2's as the evil-make-your-skin-crawl-should've been in Dr. Who-Clytus. Which #2? I'd tell you, but, answers are a burden to oneself! ;)
I also really have always loved the fact, that, just as the theme song says, "Flash, just a man, with a man's courage," is what makes this movie awesome. And all those awesome flying hawkmen before computer graphics! I wanted to live there so much as a kid! For you guys, a message: my sister says she wants to tell you as much you like Ornella, the movie wouldn't be the same without Sam Jones in his patent leather short-shorts. Things -I- wouldn't want to miss:
Those stylish opening credits. A montage from the comics with music from Queen with Mercury at his best.
And The laser crossbow the swamp men use! Woe! The stunning psychedelic panoramics as Flash travels from world to world. Topol (Fiddler on the roof) as a mad scientist who is not mad at all - and he likes the Beatles;)! Ming's power ring. For fans of the movie: my favorite gaff: How Flash seems to appear in a new shirt or completely different outfit and you don't remember him changing.HMMM. ! Great Stuff. This is a fun movie and it does make you think about uniting people of all kinds -- WITH GREAT MUSIC! (my husband says not everyone likes Queen or rock, my pint is, for those of you in need of clarification, that music in general is divine:)
THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
The DVD is worth it. It's wide screen so you see the swamp in all it's green glory, like you haven't since you first saw the movie. The Hawkmen in flight, especially the "THANKS FLASH" at the end never looked so great! And Queen never sounded so great! I've been waiting along time for this, and I don't mind that it doesn't have commentary, yet. The sound and awesome picture quality have me singing. I love this movie so much and the soundtrack, that when I was 15 and I found an old copy laying around with my dad's old VHS, I got my tape with the Soundtrack and played it on my portable stereo so I could get it the unforgettable theme song in stereo. Go Flash! Go!
Rating:
Summary: nice bubble gum
Review: nice sci-fi not SF. you can enjoy it like bubble gum no thinking required.
Rating:
Summary: An overlooked classic from the 80's
Review: Sometimes certain films end up being much better than they have any right to be. Flash Gordon is one of those films. It is, in fact, and I say this in mortal fear of being mocked and shunned by my peers, one of my all time favotite movies. I can watch this film endlessly, and every time I see it I walk around smiling for the rest of the day... it's just that kind of movie. The cast, first and foremost, is excellent. They work wonders with the material they're given... admittedly this isn't Shakespeare, but it plays remarkably well, with very few cringe-worthy moments. Standout performances include Max Von Sydow as the astoundingly evil Ming, Peter Wyngarde as the almost equally evil Klytus, Brian Blessed as the leader of the Hawkmen, and Topol(?) as an eccentric Dr. Zarkov. Then, of course, there's the absolutely stunning Ornelia Muti as Ming's beautiful daughter Aura... she's wonderful to look at, and has an exotic accent to boot. When I saw this film in the theater as a wee lad, I had quite the childhood crush on Miss Muti... sigh. Anyway, all of the actors seem to be having a grand time with their roles, and it definitely shows. With all due respect to the actors, however, I really think it's the brilliant soundtrack that makes Flash Gordon stand out most in my mind. Queen, near the peak of their popularity, provided a wonderful, throbbing, highly eccentric collection of songs and instrumental bits that fit the film perfectly. I badgered my poor mother to buy me the 8-track, in fact, and then proceeded to play it at every opportunity... a very patient woman, my mother. She probably still hears "dumdumdumdumdumdumDUMDUM **FLASH!!** ah-AHH!..." in her sleep. Sorry, mom. The special effects are actually still pretty impressive, as well... bear in mind, however, that I have a soft spot for 1980's effects. I really miss the days when the answer to "How'd they do that?" wasn't always "With computers." There's a certain mystery to these old effects, and I always respect the effort and creativity that went into making things happen with such limited technology. Sigh... Still, the film is very,very colorful, and there are a LOT of costumes, backgrounds, etc. Everything has a very shiny, surreal sort of look to it, in stark contrast to the realistic, worn-out look of the Star Wars films. It's pretty neat in its own way. In the end, though, Flash Gordon is just plain entertaining. There's hardly ever a dull moment, and the film's almost 2 hour running time goes by in a flash (pun fully intended, with all apologies to the reader). You get a lot of action in those 2 hours... there are laser battles, lots of starships, hand to hand combat on a floating spike disk(?), catfights (in a harem, no less), flame-throwing rings, dominatrix henchladies, evil Space People, a surprising amount of implied sexuality, and the list goes on and on. Just put it in, turn off your brain, and for God's sake HAVE FUN! On a side note, I have to say that the DVD release is a bit disappointing. The five star rating is strictly for the film itself, not for the disc. Although the video and audio quality is fine (easily the best version currently available), there is absolutely nothing in the way of extras. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Not even a trailer, for crying out loud. Here's hoping that someone, perhaps Anchor Bay (king of the cult classic), will have the good sense to release a Special Edition. I would love to see outtakes, trailers, making of bios, commentary, etc. This film certainly deserves better treatment than it's given here. Still, this DVD is currently the best edition of Flash Gordon you're going to find (and it's WIDESCREEN!). Plus, it can be picked up pretty cheaply, if you can actually find it. I wholeheartedly recommend that you search it out, watch it over and over, and then join me in waiting patiently for a collector's edition to come along. Even with its shortcomings, Flash Gordon on DVD most definitely deserves a spot in your collection. Just file it under "Guilty Pleasures." :)
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