May God forgive George Lucas for Star Wars (1977). Its success led to such a huge wave of follow-ups, imitators, and wannabes, from America and out of it, written directly to cinema or based on old work, good or miserably bad ! Flash Gordon (1980) is one of those movies, produced by American-English money, based on old 1930s comics, and for the most part.. not miserably bad.While it has bases to launch a saga of its own, it doesn't realize itself as an enjoyable blockbuster, or strong sequel-worthy movie. And I have 2 accused of that crime !If this script has a mark, then it has to be that a lot of its events happen SUDDENLY. For instance, while the hero and the heroine travel by a plane, they find themselves SUDDENLY in a Russian scientist home, and within 2 minutes they find themselves SUDDENLY in planet Mongo !!! While the Vultan's kingdom explodes, and the lead wants desperately to escape, he SUDDENLY finds a rocket cycle, which he SUDDENLY knows how to drive ??!! While the heroine – who knew the lead since hours ago – wants to tell him a story, he interrupts her saying fondly : "Save it for our kids" ??!! So he SUDDENLY loves her now, wants to marry her, and she SUDDENLY accepts ?!!! I won't say more, I'll only add : "..and so on" ! For the second accused, I must recall the scene of defeating the evil guy. It doesn't exist in the first place, since the mighty and merciless Emperor Ming is finished without a proper fight. It's shown as random as a sneeze !! Later I knew that there was a swordfight between Flash and The Emperor, however due to numerous production problems that plagued the movie—it was canceled. This explains also the abundance of primitive smoky backgrounds, mostly terrible green screen effects, and obvious – 1950s movies like – miniature models. Clearly, there wasn't a budget for any Star Wars kind of respectable, or acceptable, visual effects !I believe producer Dino De Laurentiis wanted a cheap Star Wars saga, and with the matters getting worse, the ambition changed to campy fun, especially with a hell of plastic electronics and metal customs, fisheye lens from director Mike Hodges's side, all covered with tons of gloss provided by director of photography Gilbert Taylor (who was the DOP of Star Wars itself !). So, as you see, poor writing, as well as poor production, killed the movie's seriousness, even as entertaining action adventure, and randomness just ruled. You read things like how Sam J. Jones, as Flash Gordon, improvised the moment where he jumps into the camera screaming "YEAH!", as nobody could figure out how to end the movie ! That's why Hodges called it eventually "The only improvised $27-million movie ever made" !Speaking of that $27-million, where did they go ?? I'll tell you. To the sole perfect thing in this movie: The Colors. They mastered that element to the max, where the viewing turned into a journey into huge sparkling diamond, filled with seas of glittering red and yellow. To my surprise, I discovered that the psychedelic color effects throughout the Ming universe were accomplished by swirling multicolored dyes through creatively-lit tanks of water. OK, they should have called it "Flashy Gordon" instead !As for more pros, Melody Anderson and Ornella Muti are marvelous beauties from the 1980s, an era where the movie girls were innocent and extremely sexy too. I loved watching the all serious Max von Sydow as an over the top cartoon-ish evil guy. Despite not having a long screen time, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin stole the show from Sam J. Jones as the title character. The idea of enthusiastic and hip "Queen" songs is so creative, but they looked strange in the middle of that camp festival (which enhanced the movie's campy nature though !). And I won't lie, some of the adventurous spirit, which the movie apparently was based on and dreamed of, attracted me despite how that dream wasn't completely fulfilled after all. Flash Gordon (1980) couldn't score highly at the box office, hence so long to the whole six sequels franchise which all the main actors were signed for, or at least part 2 which the last shot hints at. It is a mix of bright colors and loud naivety, and the real criminal is disappointing poorness. It feels like very dazzling suit, that when you approach it, you'll see how it's shabby, to the extent of having holes in it !

Based on the King Features comic strip by Alex Raymond, this Dino De Laurentiis fantasy-adventure is bright and plush and looks expensive--but there's no magic happening on-screen. Director Mike Hodges sets up battles and derring-do without much visual mystery. The movie's look is too clear-eyed and glossy, like a TV show with a high budget. American football player Flash Gordon is kidnapped along with a female journalist by the eccentric scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov during what appears to be an eclipse. Zarkov believes Earth is under attack by Emperor Ming the Merciless of the planet Mongo, and blasts the three of them into space in a rocket of his own design in order to save the world from destruction. The performances are intentionally over-the-top, although Sam J. Jones in the title role looks more like a villain than a hero (his tight grimace and blank stare aren't very exciting qualities). The rock music by Queen is disappointing, as is the script by Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who developed the 1960s "Batman" TV series. This effort, while presented on a grand scale, lacks even the heart of the 1978 revamp of "Superman". It's too square and mild, though its love for the source material is commendable. *1/2 from ****

There is no denying that this movie is quite bad in many respects. Some of the actors are not very good, the whole plot is laughable, the characters are predictable and naive, and the whole style is way too glittery and Italian for this to have any taste at all.But strangely enough, this also works in its favour. The whole thing feels like a naive and glittery pulp cartoon from the 30ies, glamorous, adventurous, and often with little substance - and therefore quite fitting in its own way, regarding that Flash Gordon actually WAS all this.Still, the whole movie would still not be half as entertaining without the wonderful Queen score. Flashy, shallow, naive, glamorous and hero-worshiping - I bet those guys enjoyed themselves immensely with this!

This movie is hilarious 'bad', but in the best way.From the opening this movie is hilarious bad/funny/good. It is so because Ming is told that the planet he will attack is "Earth" and on the control panel is a button for "Earthquake" - a button that only makes sense if you know Earth and attack Earth. Any serious movie would have made a button "Planet quake" :)All effects are similar - just enjoy it. Nothing explained. Watching this movie from 1980 now makes it so much funnier, as you can reflect upon many of the newer science fiction movies, that actually perform worse, despite all the perfect effects as none of them have proper acting and much too serious but still lack logic.In this movie our heroes drops directly into Emperors Mings world, have no idea where they are, but in no time runs around and manage to organize a fight to save earth in the very last second. All Aliens speaks perfect English and Ming gets a nice big stick through his body. Nice to see his blood is green, and his daughters is red.