The movie that I was asked when I’d get around to it. The movie that has stuck through a couple generations now as either fantastic or horrid… That’s right this week’s pic is Barbarella. Now prepare for a long review.

This movie has influenced CLAMP (manga), Duran Duran (If you haven’t heard of these guys shame on you.) A Lava lamp company, and various other people throughout the years. Duran Duran has to be the most well known. The Scientist Barbarella is sent to find is called Durand Durand.

I won’t lie to you, I like this movie. It was that forbidden bit of porn I was able to glimpse when I was a kid. And it spawned from a very early age my love of Red Headed women. I bought this on DVD recently and all these memories came back. Ten years old staying up late at night so I could watch Barbarella on Cable and keeping the sound low so my parents couldn’t hear.

Well having said I like it, I am going to be harsh on it. For its time it was ok. It did badly in the box office. The Budget for the film was 9 million and the gross from the box office was just over 600,000. Yeah… that’s nearly 18 times more expensive to make then it made. Now we will see why it failed.

Opening is a fully suited astronaut floating around a shag carpeted cockpit. If I ever have a spaceship it will not be carpeted let alone shag carpeted. She starts taking off her gloves and suit to some up beat music that reminds me of dancing through fields of wildflowers with those friends that never show up unless you are on acid. You know the ones… Jane Fonda looks like she’s drugged in this first part.  Now is one of two parts you will see that have nudity and I have to say, it’s not bad. For just a breast shot its nice

So apparently in the 40th century Humanity has become a bunch of pansies. Barbarella is shocked to learn that Durand Durand has created a Weapon. The Universe has been at peace for centuries. Great… peace is so boring. Her ship reminds me of a Pinewood derby car (scout reference). Ship’s computer is names Alphie, and she sleeps on a Mylar sheet. Fast forward 154 hours.

While some strange stuff happens outside their view window (Think the weirdest 60’s lava lamp you’ve ever seen… yeah… stranger then that) they crash land on the planet below.  The ship crashes into an ice part of the planet.  She exits the ship wearing something that anyone would freeze in. Two girls show up for no real reason and start speaking some made up language. They throw a snowball at her with a lump of crystal to knock her down. They tie up her hands and then they all go skiing with a massive brown stingray pulling them over the ice…. yeah… I’m confused also.

They take her to Durand Durand’s crashed ship. There are more children with bad hair that tie her to a post, They set down some dolls that walk towards her and bite her. I am sure this looked a lot better in the comic then it does on the screen. The Catch man comes and rescues her. Apparently he knows nothing. They catch the children and take them away to do service or some such. She’s hurt and he keeps saying he knows nothing. He has some kind of wheeled ice sailing vehicle. He want’s to make love to her and there’s something about a psycho-cardio gram that the catch man knows nothing about. There are some pills… yeah that will come in later. She’s a virgin and so is the entire Human race except the poor. No one has had sex in centuries.

The Catch man takes off his furs, or does he? He’s so hairy I am not sure when he’s naked and when he isn’t. It was good enough for Barbarella that she’s singing and can’t quite function. The Catch man says she can have some of his furs. She chooses some kind of messed up skunk creature. Her ship is fixed in reverse. She takes off then plummets into the planet underground. The stupid Catch man runs to the hole and shouts her name twice as if she can hear him.

She breaks through into a labyrinth, gets knocked out. Pygar says he is the last of the Orninthinthropes (Ornathropes?) stating there he’s not an Angel. Barbarella asks about Durand Durand and Pygar does not know of such things. No one on this planet knows anything! The Labyrinth is cool and freaky. People are half in the rock walls in odd combinations. Punishment for something done. These people eat Orchids which is an obvious call back to the Lotus eaters of north Africa. They say its because it amuses the tyrant to feed orchids to the slaves, I think its more of a way of pacifying the population.

The Black guard show up, Pygar shoots it and boom! It explodes into a thousand pieces. Its just the shell. So since Pygar saved her life of course she’s going to have sex with him in his nest. She’s singing again and rubbing herself with a large flight feather when suddenly Pygar regained the will to fly (but not act). They fly towards the dark city only they are going the wrong way. If you take a bell pepper and quarter it, then put two quarters on either side of a box that has two clear beehives on it, you have the enemy ships. They are all white and clear but it looks like one of the most messed up creations I have seen in decades.

They land and and enter the city. Two men attack them and are about to attempt to rape Barbarella when an eye patch wearing woman shows up, kills them, and calls her “pretty pretty”.  Barbarella runs off looking for Pygar and says a line which I think is suppose to be funny but i’m not sure. “What’s that screaming? A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.” She finds him and they enter the Chamber of Ultimate Solution. Much better then the Room of Final Solution. Pretty much the same thing. Its a forerunner to a suicide booth. Choose one of three screaming ways to die or you’ll be given to the Matmos. That’s when Durand Durand shows up, no one knows its him. He explains that the Matmos is energy in liquid form that feeds on negative psychic vibrations or Evil.

She slides down a hole into another part of the city where the two ice girls are. The great Tyrant shows up and she has a clear horn she wears on her forehead. She’s the one eyed chick that saved her. Pygar is strung up and Barbarella grabs the gun she put in his loin cloth before. She takes the Tyrant hostage but she has no energy to fire it. They take her away and the Tyrant tries to seduce Pygar. “An Angel does not make love, an Angel is love.” But he said he’s not an Angel! The Tyrant tells her guards to take this winged fruitcake to the Matmos.

Enter the bird chamber. Barbarella is stuck inside and a hundred birds are let loose. They peck at her and so on. Seems a dumb way to die. More so when the Parakeets aren’t doing anything but flying and landing on her. She goes down another hole and shows up in the revolution headquarters. Dildo… no sorry Dildano is there who is the head of the revolution. Barbarella states that he’s saved her life. She wants Sex and he wants the pill form. She’s disappointed. They put one hand out and then something happens in which they achieve full rapport and look like deer caught in headlights. I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Her ship is repaired and she decides to go after the Black Queen (a.k.a. Great Tyrant) so that the revolutionists can take over. The password for their meeting is Handfirepuffkinvengoldichglobalvenclandilgogogo. What? The key to open the invisible wall is of course invisible. She goes up into the city again and there is more nudity. There is also a Huka that has a man swimming around in the water… people are taking hits of essence of man. Durand Durand shows up again and puts her in the Sexual Pleasure Torture Machine. As he plays various keys it takes off her clothing and gives her pleasure. Barbarella now is too much of a slut and the machine breaks before it kills her.

Durand Durand wants to kill the Queen so he can take over, he leads Barbarella to the Chamber of Dreams. Durand Durand locks her inside with the Queen who’s asleep. The Chamber is some strange kind of psychedelic place. They see that Durand Durand is about to be crowned but the Labyrinth people revolt. He uses the Positronic Ray to annihilate everyone including Dildano. The Queen frees the Matmos and it creates a bubble around Barbarella and the Queen because of Barbarella’s innocence… huh? Pygar gets spit out and takes Barbarella and the Queen back to the space ship, the one with the shag carpeted cockpit.

Barbarella – “Pygar, what did you save her (queen) for after all the terrible things she’s done to you?”
Pygar – “An Angel has no memory.”

He says it with a grin that basically announces he’s expecting a threesome.

So here comes the breakdown…

Cast – 7: Jane Fonda, Marcel Marceau, Milo O’Shea. A few people I know.
Plot – 2: Its more of a glorified soft core porn then anything
Action – 1: There is no real action that is worth mentioning
Effects – 2: For the 1960’s it was decent, for 2009 its horrible.
Music – 4: A couple catchy songs but nothing really worth listening to.
Final Score – 16

That’s right, Barbarella scored less then Cybernator. I still like it only because it was the forbidden fruit when I was ten and did not quite understand why I liked naked women so much. Its worth watching with a group of friends. I would never recommend that you watch it solo however. It has some great ideas that never seem to work out in the film.

The worse bit of news is that there is a remake in the works and Robert Rodriguez is going to direct it. He does mostly great work with the Mexico trilogy and Sin City… I hope to god he can do something great with this film.

There you have it, Barbarella… now you don’t have to watch it.