Improved Plotting

The plot seems to me to be better than Star Wars too. Instead of being a straight 'us against them', 'rebels vs. empire' clash, we are in a world of treachery and self interest; where you can never be sure who is working for Ming, who is a 'goody', and who is in it for themselves. If anything, the plot opens up too many possibilities, so that many loose ends are left; but it will be considerably easier to make a satisfactory sequel to Flash Gordon that it was to Lucas' film. And for sheer thrills, it can't be matched; I estimate that Flash goes into mortal peril once every seven minutes.

The casting is good, especially that of Max von Sydow as Ming of Mongo, the ultimate in villains. (Max von Sydow must be one of the few actors around the have played this wonderful part and that of Christ, all in one career.) Sam J. Jones as Flash has a nice mixture of wide eyed disbelief and loyalty, truth, justice and... so on. Perhaps not quite as well scripted as Christopher Reeves in Superman, but still very amusing.

The dialogue has moments of absolute brilliant inanity (Sample: ('Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the earth.")

Topol's mad scientist Dr Zarkov is rather disappointing, but maybe this character comes to its own in the sequel. As Dale Arden, Melody Anderson is quite good, although it's a rather thankless part: her competitor for Flash's favours, Ming's villainous daughter Aua, is much more interesting. ("She's a strange girl. I think she rather enjoyed the torture.") I'm afraid this is an unashamedly sexist movie, compared even to the Lucas opus, but on the other hand, as it makes very few other concessions to the nineteen eighties perhaps this is understandable.

My biggest gripe is the photography. I know that it's very difficult to shoot in Cinerama at the best of times, let alone when you are working on a tight budget: if you move the camera too much the audience gets sea sick. But the photography here is so static that it is only some very competent editing that gets the thing going at all; there is a tendency for the thing to be a little flat at times.

The music score deserves special mention. Whereas Lucas and his imitators have gone for thundering orchestral pastiches of Hoist, Walton, and Stravinsky, the music here is played by Queen, and is very satisfactory and suitable. In particular, their interpretation of the Mendelssohn wedding march is perfectly suited to what we see.

And what does it all mean? Remember the critics talking about neo-fascist cinema when Star Wars came out? Well, I'm sure that, if Ming was about to use a bore-worm on you, you would be able to find all sorts of Freudian or political overtones; but on the other hand, who needs them? Flash Gordon is an enjoyable way of spending two and a half hours, and is highly recommended.

S.D.