Flash Gordon (DVD)

What’s it about? --------------------- Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr Hans Zarkov set off in a spaceship to find out who or what is attacking Earth. Who’s in it? --------------- Most of the cast is, frankly, appalling; the standard of acting somewhere just above the level you would expect of an amateur dramatics performance. Sam J Jones is the hero of the title and is only slightly less wooden than the trees on the planet of Arboria. Equally poor is Melody Anderson as Dale Arden. She manages to look pretty, but ruins the effect every time she opens her mouth, letting loose a shrill, whiny voice. Topol appears ill at ease as Zarkov and ...  Read the complete review

Ah, my favourite film. The greatest film ever made, in fact. Flash Gordon was released in 1980, one if a bunch of films around that time designed to cash in on Star Wars. But while the likes of Battlestar Galactica and The Black Hole are tedious, Flash is a masterpiece (it was intended to be the first of a trilogy, although tragically it didn't do well enough for the other films to be made). A remake of a 1930s serial, which was itself an adaptation of a comic strip, the film shows the Earth being attacked by evil space emperor Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow). Square-jawed American footballer Flash Gordon (Sam J Jones) and pretty travel agent Dale Arden ...  Read the complete review

There are some guilty pleasures that I would like to keep to myself but recently the SciFi channel have been showing quite a lot of one of my all time "I really shouldn't love this but I do" films. And that film is Flash Gordon (1980) directed by Mike Hodges (who is probably best known for directing Get Carter - the original and better version with Michael Caine) and produced by Dino de Laurentiis (he has produced the likes of Manhunter, Hannibal, Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising to name a few). Why I should love this film so much is more deeply rooted by circumstance than anything else. I loved it before I even saw it in full. My parents are big ...  Read the complete review

FLASH GORDON "Flash - a-ah - saviour of the universe. Flash - a-ah - he'll save every one of us." Or so the Queen soundtrack goes over the comic-book enriched title credits (something Spiderman 2 would later borrow). It serves to get the audience's toes immediately tapping in anticipation for the film to begin outright and, for some bizarre reason, coupled with the spandex pants, phallic shaped spaceships, an over-developed sense for bright, garish colours and Brian Blessed shouting "DIVE" to his birdman hordes whenever he gets the chance, Flash Gordon comes across as a deliriously brilliant, camp piece of outrageous space opera ...  Read the complete review

Flash Gordon - just like the traditional stories, is a top American Football player transported to Mongo by the nutty Dr Hans Zarkov, along with Dale Arden, the three of them attempt to save the Earth before the moon crashes into it. This of course was planned to be a massive blockbuster movie - with its array of stars, featuring Topol, Brian Blessed, Max Von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, Richard O'Brian and even Peter Duncan from the Blue Peter crew of the time! I went to see this way back when I was about 5 years old! I was so excited to see it, I remember going to the kids at school the next day and pretending that I was riding the Hawkman rocketcycle ...  Read the complete review