Hi, 80’s? It’s me, New Stay at Home Mom, calling. And you’ve got some ‘splainin to do.
I mean, what were you thinking when you allowed that Flash Gordon movie to happen?! You had some really excellent stuff going on up to that point. I won’t even mention the music and the dance moves. Fuggedaboudit. And the brown eye shadow? Which – when worn up to your eyebrows – made you look both angry AND mean. Nicely done. And all of the stuff you did to cover the dawning belly pooch – paper bag waist jeans, low-slung belts, dropped waists? ‘Nuf said.
Listen, I could go on-and-on here. But what I really called to say was that the Flash Gordon movie was a big mis-step on your part. The husband, kids and I caught some of it this week-end on t.v. and………Oh. My. Gawd!
It is utterly atrocious.
If you haven’t seen it in ….ooooh….25 YEARS, you should go back for another look.
The costuming is so horrible that you can’t really tell who’s who and the kids spent the entire movie asking who the bad guy was. “Is THAT a bad guy, Dad?”
“No, that’s King Vultan.”
King Vultan apparently is a GOOD guy with a bad fake tan who looks like the bearded strong man from an olde tyme circus – complete with gold baggy underpants and a wide belt. ‘Cept he’s wearing wings. Hawk wings. And a crown on his head with wings on it. There were so many wings going on, I thought for sure he was someone [pulled from the recesses of my brain] called Hawk Eye. But my husband informed me in that superior voice he adopts when he’s talking about Superheroes, that this was NOT Hawkeye. Hawkeye was from Superman, not Flash Gordon.
Oh. Ok. Dork!
But then I found ways to make everyone say Hawk Eye because it totally sounds like Hot Guy. Which is funny. And you need to “funny” things up a bit (ok, alot) when you’re watching Flash Gordon. Otherwise you’d cry because it’s SO TERRIBLE!!!
The movie background – THE ENTIRE TIME – is an orange-ish sunset. Clearly they were relying on the costumes (not the background) to set the tone. And yes, the costumes do set a certain tone. A tone that should never, EVER have been set. There were too many shoulder pads. And too much gold lamé. And WAAAAAY too much skin. I mean, do people not wear clothes in the future-which-may-not-be-the-future-but-which-may-actually-be-happening-now-but-on-another-planet??? Everyone was wearing crazy crap. Well, everyone except for Prince Baron (played by TIMOTHY DALTON I might add) who was wearing an outfit that looks like a cross between Robin Hood and Peter Pan. But mostly Peter Pan with no hat. He’s got no gold lamé, no inappropriate skin showing, no bizarre make-up of any kind. Just a cheesy, 80’s porno mustache which makes it hard to tell at first that it’s him.
Gawd. It’s horrible. There’s even this one part where Gordon’s love interest (Dale…wah, wah, waaaaaah – what a totally lame name for a superhero love interest) is wearing all gold lamé with massive SHOULDER PADS and is thrown into a room with a gold lamé FLOOR. At which point she has a catfight with Ming-the-Merciless’ daughter who’s also wearing something horrible (‘cept it’s more of a gauzy I-Dream-of-Jeannie-meets-the-80’s type outfit) when a woman dressed like a jellyfish wearing a green bikini shows up to tell Dale (wah, wah, waaaaaah) that she must now prepare for her marriage to Ming. Fake knuckle biting ensues and Dale cries (being careful not to actually cover her face too much nor muss her make-up with her bad overacting) as she walks down the aisle to…a jazzed up version of “Here Comes the Bride”?!?
Which sounds like it’s being played by Queen. “Because it IS being played by Queen. The whole soundtrack is by Queen,” my husband informs me in his superior you-don’t-know-nuthin’-’bout-superheros-OR-Queen voice.
Gaaaah!!!
But all’s well that end’s well. Good triumphs over evil blah, blah,blah. The Hawkpeople (Hot People) come and a bad-special-effects laser battle (pew, pew!) ensues in front of an orange sunset. Flash helps out with this final battle by riding in on what looks oddly like a Sea-Do wave runner. There’s even this one special part where Hot Guy leading his Hot People (hee hee hee) yells “DIE” (in a Steve Martin die-you-gravy-sucking-pigs sort of way) but then all the Hot People plummet from the sky and land on their bellies (really? If you’re a Hot Person, wouldn’t you learn to land on your FEET, and not skitter in on your belly?!?). The kids and I thought the whole “DIE” thing was weird until Hubby informed us (you KNOW what voice he was using, don’t you?) that Hot Guy (hee hee hee) had yelled “DIVE” not “DIE.”
Oh. Ok. But it’s my opinion that it would have made a WAY better movie if he had yelled DIE! And it would have been EVEN BETTER if Steve Martin had been there in a white suit and an arrow through his head. It certainly wouldn’t have been any WORSE.
And now? Now my son is walking around the house singing, “FLASH. AH-AAAAH!!!” (in that faux operatic Queen style). You see, this theme song from Flash Gordon which has a total of two words – one of which isn’t really a word – gets in your head AND WON’T GET OUT ALREADY!
So to sum up…..1980’s, you were WAY better than this. This was not your most shining moment. In fact, the entire movie should have been left on the cutting room floor. You shoulda said to yourself, “Flash?? Nuh-AAAAH!!!”
Hi – New Stay At Home Mom here. Apparently I wasn’t listening closely enough when Hubby was being smarmy about which “team” Hot Guy belonged to. Turns out he belongs to the Avengers’ team and not Superman’s. Thanks so much for the info, Sweetie Dork!
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