Forty Years Ago - Flash Gordon

I know that you’ve basically only really got one line from the film wedged in your head now. Go on, you can say it out loud. We’re not really around other people anymore, you can say it. Go on, I’ll wait.

There, that's better,isn’t it?

Flash Gordon (1980 - yep, still)
Dir. Mike Hodges / Dur. 114 mins

What’s It About? A football player, a travel agent and a (slightly unhinged) scientist travel to the planet Mongo to prevent it’s definitely deranged emperor from destroying the Earth.

Why’s It Any Good? In the days before comic books and their subsequent big screen adaptations were grim, brooding and gritty (OK, maybe not Batman And Robin but you get the general idea), there was Flash Gordon - a proper attempt at transcribing the lurid excesses of the comic book page up onto the screen. 
Is it a good film? By any serious film critics' view, probably not. Sam Jones is not the greatest actor around, the greenscreen isn’t brilliant a lot of the time and it’s weirdly kinky for a family oriented blockbuster type film. Is it a fun film? Oh my word, yes. It’s bright and garish, the various members of Ming’s court are weird and over-the-top, it has a curious abundance of C-list British stars (including a brief role for former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan) and it’s weirdly kinky for a family oriented blockbuster type film (although this last point definitely went over my head as a child). Plus it has Brian Blessed defining himself as that Brian Blessed type character in perpetuity after this (oh, alright, “Gordon’s alive?!?”; there you go).
It has a sense of humor and playfulness that would be lacking from comic book / superhero type films throughout the 80s and 90s until Marvel successfully cracked that formula (and proceeded to then completely dominate the box office for about 12 years but that’s another story…). It was part of the collection of taped-off-the-telly films on VHS that was watched incessantly in our house (Star Wars, Ghostbusters and many more being among that collection) to the point where I would start to know the script. Don’t test me now, that part of the brain has long been filled up by other pointlessly nerdy gubbins. (I was also always disappointed that they never followed up on the ambiguous “The End…?” - I would have loved to see a Flash Gordon II.) 
It stills stands up today as a bright, stylish, weird and funny example of superhero films of the pre-gloom era and, if you haven’t seen it and are in the mood for some daft escapism (and who isn’t these days), is well worth a couple of hours of your time.