Sam J. Jones | Through the Shattered Lens

Flash Gordon Life on the planet Mongo is not easy. Aided by Darth Vader wannabe Klytus (Peter Wyngarde) and the sadistic General Kala (Mariangela Melato), the evil Emperor Ming (Max Von Sydow) rules with an iron fist. All of the citizens are heavily taxed and kept in a state of perpetual war in order to keep them from joining together and rebelling. Those who attempt to defy Ming are executed.

There are many different races living on both Mongo and its moons. The Arborians, also known as the tree people, live in a jungle and are ruled by Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton). Until Ming overthrew his father, Barin was the rightful heir to the throne of Mongo. Barin is also one of the many lovers of Aura (Ornella Muti), Ming’s rebellious daughter.

Barin distrusts the Hawkmen, a group of winged barbarians. Led by the boisterous Prince Vultan (the one and only Brian Blessed), the Hawkmen live in a palace that floats above Mongo. Both Vultan and Barin share a desire to overthrow Ming but neither one of them can set aside their own dislike and distrust of each other.

Ming grows bored easily but Klytus has found him a new play thing, an obscure planet in the S-K system. “The inhabitants,” Klytus says, “refer to it as the planet Earth.”

It all leads to this:

You may have been too busy listening to Queen’s theme song to notice (and I don’t blame you if you were) but I have always found it strange that, even though Ming had never heard of Earth before Klytus brought it to his attention, he still had a button labeled “Earthquake.” Whenever I watch Flash Gordon, I wonder if I am the only one who has noticed this.

With Ming plaguing Earth with tornadoes, hurriances, and “hot hail,” it is up to three Earthlings to travel to Mongo and defeat him. Dr. Zarkov (Topol) is an eccentric scientist who was forced out of NASA because of his belief in Mongo. Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) is a reporter. And, finally, Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) is a professional athlete. Because this movie is a fantasy, Flash Gordon is a superstar quarterback for the New York Jets.

The character of Flash Gordon was first introduced in a 1934 comic strip and was played by Buster Crabbe in several classic serials. Among Flash’s many young fans was a future filmmaker named George Lucas, who would later cite Flash’s adventures as being a major inspiration for the Star Wars saga. After the unprecedented success of Star Wars: A New Hope, it only made sense that someone would try to make a Flash Gordon film.

That someone was producer Dino De Laurentiis. (Before writing the script for Star Wars, Lucas attempted to buy the rights for Flash Gordon from De Laurentiis.) To write the script that would bring Flash into the 80s, De Laurentiis hired Lorenzo Semple, Jr. Semple was best known for helping to create the 1960s version of Batman and he brought a similarly campy perspective to the character and story of Flash Gordon. As a result, the film ended up with scenes like this one, where Flash interrupts one of Ming’s ceremonies with an impromptu football scrimmage:

It also led to Brian Blessed’s entire performance as Prince Vultan, which is especially famous for the way that Blessed delivered one line:

(That also makes for a great ringtone.)

Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson often seem to be stranded by Semple’s script but Max Von Sydow, Topol, Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde, and Ornella Muti all get into the swing of things. Seen today, Flash Gordon is entertaining but too intentionally campy for its own good. On the positive side, the images still pop off the screen and the soundtrack sounds as great as ever. When you listen to Queen’s theme song, you have no doubt that “he’ll save every one of us.”

As Flash Gordon himself put it after he saved the universe: “YEAAAAH!”

Yeah

Well, I think the title of this review pretty succinctly sums up my reaction to Seth McFarlane’s latest film, Ted 2. Thanks for reading and have a good…

Oh, really?

Okay, I’ve been told that I have to try to think up at least 300 words to say about Ted 2. Otherwise, in the eyes of Rotten Tomatoes, we’re not a legitimate film blog.

*sigh*

Okay.

Anyway, Ted 2 is the story of a talking teddy bear (voice by Seth McFarlane) who likes to smoke weed and … well, that’s about it. He’s just gotten married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) and they’re having trouble because Tami-Lynn wants a baby but Ted, being a teddy bear, doesn’t have any reproductive organs. So, he and his friend John (Mark Wahlberg) decide to give Tom Brady a handjob so they can still his sperm. But, it turns out, none of that was important because the state of Massachusetts claims that Ted is not even a person. Instead, he’s just “property.” So, now, John and Ted and their lawyer, Sam (Amanda Seyfried), are fighting the courts to win Ted his civil rights. And then Giovanni Ribisi wants to kidnap Ted and Morgan Freeman shows up and says a few words. And the film is narrated by Patrick Stewart because it’s funny to hear Patrick Stewart curse and…

Oh! And Liam Neeson shows up. He’s a customer at the store where Ted works as a cashier. Liam wants to know if Trix are only for kids. The joke here is that it’s Liam Neeson and he’s asking about cereal. Ha ha.

Oh! And there’s two guys who shows up at New York Comic Con so that they can beat up “nerds.” During every scene set at Comic Con, they’re in the background beating people up and insulting them. And the two guys are gay! See, they’re bullies and they’re gay! And they’re beating up random people at Comic Con, just because they can! Hilarious, right?

Ted 2 spends a lot of time trying to convince us that Ted’s struggle to be recognized as a person is actually meant to be a metaphor for the American civil rights movement. But, honestly, I get the feeling that McFarlane relates more to the bullies than he does to any oppressed minority. As he previously proved with his TV shows and A Million Ways To Die In The West, McFarlane is only interested in going after easy targets. He’s your typical white male hipster who thinks that, because he voted for Obama, he can get away with telling racist jokes.

And, before anyone misunderstands, I wouldn’t mind McFarlane’s humor if it was at least funny or original. But instead, it’s the same stupid jokes that he always tells. Seth McFarlane’s comedic technique is to basically drag things out until viewers laugh from pure exhaustion. Is it effective? Well, there are people who continue to praise and defend him and Seth certainly has made a lot of money off of his act. So, obviously, there are people who respond to this. But to me, Seth McFarlane’s humor just feels lazy.

Ted 2 lasts 128 minutes. That’s over two hours devoted to a concept that feels more appropriate for a five-minute skit. Interesting enough, the first Ted was tolerable because it focused on Mark Wahlberg’s Johnny. Ted was just a supporting character and he worked as a metaphor for Johnny’s struggle to choose between growing up or being a happy slacker. (The first Ted was all about Johnny falling in love with Mila Kunis, whose character is rather cruelly dismissed at the start of Ted 2.) In Ted 2, Ted is the central character and once you get over the fact that he’s a teddy bear who drops multiple F bombs, there’s really not much to the character. It helps, of course, that we only have to listen to McFarlane. We don’t have to look at his imminently punchable, oddly lineless face. But, to be honest, even McFarlane’s voice has become grating. It’s just so self-satisfied and smug.

I saw Ted 2 with the blogger also known as Jedadiah Leland. Over the course of 128 ~~hours~~ minutes (it just felt like hours), we each laughed once. Not surprisingly, both laughs were inspired by Wahlberg’s dumb-but-sweet performance. Now, I will admit that the rest of the audience laughed a bit more than we did. But still, there was a definite atmosphere of resignation in the theater. You could literally hear the people thinking, “Oh, Ted just made a joke about black people. Better laugh now so everyone knows that I get whatever the Hell this is supposed to be. After all, those tickets weren’t free…”

What’s the word count now?

758?

Cool.

That’s enough words for me to say, “Ted 2 sucks!”