The 25th Reich (2012)

It is a noble idea to honour and homage the classic B-movies of the 1950's. Truth be told, modern day storytelling, especially in science fiction and horror would not be where it is today without those trailblazers that, undaunted by the lack of funds (or talent, in some cases) forged ahead and did bring us classics.

That era also brought us a lot of crap, but rose tinted glasses are always nicer to look through, are they not?

'The 25th Reich' is a fairly recent film that tries to capture the spirit of the fifties science fiction, that very often included nazis. Why nazis? Because in all fairness, if you had just won a war against some of the most viciously evil ideas that grace the human race, would you choose something else as the perfect villain?

I did not think so.

The intro is great, with lots of nice and  fun animation and you get the gist of the story, that it is about World War 2 and that there will be flying saucers involved. The music also goes for that nostalgic feeling, with lots of theremin sounds.

If you do not know what a theremin is, have no fear. Look it up on Youtube and realize that many of the ghostly sounds you associate with classic horror and science fiction originated from such a device.

If you assumed there would be an opening crawl to explain the plot, there is. But you can instantly forget it as well, because this MacGuffin is dropped ridiculously fast. A small group of US soldiers is sent on a mission through the Australian outback to capture or kill two escaped pumas. They have to drag along a massive device, ostensibly because it sends out signals to lure the beasties. Little do they know it is in fact a time machine and before you can say "Holy Eisenhower!" they are transported 50,000 years into the past to unearth a flying saucer, which is also a time machine. Because the time machine they use actually comes from the time machine they discovered in the 1940's.

Let us not get started on paradoxes. This film does not care.

The soldiers are pretty much one note. There is a gruff sergeant who is actually a colonel who is in fact, a nazi. (Spoilers? Not really. You all expected this twist, let us be honest) There is a clichéd Italian-American from - where else? - the Bronx, a redneck cunt, a goofy Jewish boy and our plucky (well...) hero, a former film star who is actually also Jewish. Because who better to fight off nazis than Jews, right?

I wish I could say that was clever, but it is actually so bland it hurts my sensibilities.

If you are expecting lots of fights with flying saucers and those effectively creepy nazi spider robots, I am sorry for the disappointment. They only appear the very last minutes of the film, thus trying to make you forget the boring, uneventful hour that came before. For a film that clocks in at just around 80 minutes, not a lot happens until the end and that is over in a flash, even giving us a sneak peek at a possible sequel that will never happen, because the makers tried to go for the sequel-itis that classic films often had, because serials.

The problem is not that this film is boring or that it is not all that well made (the CG looks horrendous), but that it tries to be too clever about the genre it is trying to be an homage to. You can not purposefully by cheap, write your characters lazily and have some random stuff thrown in and expect to create a modern day version of the Fifties B-films. There was hardly anyone during the Fifties that assumed they were making a flimsy flick. They were hampered by lack of funds and/or talent. Trying to emulate that just comes off as cheap and stupid.

Do not be cheap and stupid. Watch better films than this one.