Barbarella (1968)

Originally Written

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Barbarella gives new meaning to classification of "campy" science fiction films. I love sci-fi and I enjoy the old science fiction films or television series, my favorite being Lost In Space which got pretty corny at times, but never did Lost In Space get as bad as Barbarella. The plot of the film is simple; Barbarella is a space heroine sent from Earth to find a man named Duran Duran who threatens the peace of the universe with an unusual deadly weapon. Along the way she is kidnapped by children who feed her to dolls with metal teeth, tortured with a pleasure machine, attacked by birds and left to the mercy of the matmos.

It shouldn't take long to figure out how bad this film is, the sad part is it continues to get worse. I don't know what is worse, the atrocious acting by everyone, the horrible script, the 60's game show soundtrack, or the fact that the film on top of being completely awful is actually quite boring. It's quite obvious that the film was made in the 60's with the space ship that is lined in shag carpet and the horrible 60's music, it would not surprise me if a couple of high hippies made this film.

Now many people take the stance that the film was intentionally made to be "campy". I have no problem with "campy" but this goes far beyond that, it's one thing to intentionally make fun of something by over exaggerating things and it's another thing to intentionally make a bad movie, whether intentional or not bad is bad and on top of boring it is even worse. Even the set designs are horrible for their time, and make Lost In Space's glitter and saran warp look top notch. The film is really boring during the numerous scenes where no one says anything and you have to listen to the horrible game show music. When it's all said and done a campy film should at least be humorous, but because this is so horrible it's more pain than pleasure.

Overall this is definitely a cult film with a small fan base, the general movie watcher will find this tremendously tedious. I had seen parts of this film before and thought it was pretty corny, but after watching the whole thing, corny alone would have been welcomed. Barbarella is a very pointless and shallow film which if you happen to be a flower child and permanently brain damaged from smoking your weed, you might enjoy. But for the most part Barbarella is a space slut and goes around sleeping with every guy she meets on her "mission". I was really quite shocked this film was rated PG with the numerous breast shots throughout the film, even in the title sequence, amazingly not even pointless nudity could help this film and it seemed that’s what they were trying to do.

In the end, Barbarella is quite possibly one of the worst films I have ever seen, which may be the only reason some people like it, because it's so bad. I really wanted to like this film, but it reminded me of a low budget college production with a hot chick and a horrible story. There's no denying Jane Fonda's sex appeal here, but that was about it, once she opened her mouth it was over. I was about to give this film a zero, but in thinking it over I'll be generous with a couple mercy points because the concept of the film was alright. Give the script a complete overhaul and this might have been half-way entertaining. But with what we're given the poster and Fonda's outfits are pretty much the best Barbarella has to offer. Rumor has it a remake is in the works, lets hope they can put together an entertaining story with a little bit of action, otherwise look out, but with actresses like Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox supposedly interested in the role, if done right the new Barbarella would be something to see!

2/10