Am I the only person that thinks Flash Gordon (1980) is one of the most boring movies ever made?
I wasn't entertained in the slightest bit. Typically, I love "bad" movies, but they have to be entertaining for them to work right.
I have tons of problems with Flash Gordon. First off, why am I suppose to care about Flash? The problem, is that the movie expects you to care for him going into the movie (it already expects you to be a fan of the B&W series), which is a problem for the non-fans. The movie opens with Flash getting onto a plane, and crash landing it. That is all the backstory you get with Flash. Then we get to see him do corny football moves when he arrives in the throne room at the other planet, which really threw me off in cheesy disgust. I didn't care for any of the characters to be quite frank because there wasn't any writing for them. Star Wars is a good example of this; Luke Skywalker being a character that you care for in the first 30 minutes because they gave him a backstory and provided the correct writing. You realize his problems, and his dreams of wanting explore the world. With Flash, there's no backstory at all, other than he was a QB for the New York Jets that just so happened to be at the right place at the wrong time.
The second problem, is Flash Gordon has absolutely no atmosphere whatsoever. Everything seems staged with bright and poppy colors. The set design was kinda similar to Dune, but without the atmosphere and the exquisite direction. I wasn't pulled into the film, nor did I care to experience the "cheap" world that was defined by it. Honestly, if a movie JUST has the atmosphere, then I'm at least able to sit through it and space out decently enough (The City of Lost Children, for example).
The acting was downright terrible, along with the writing. Again, I like this type of stuff, but it wasn't entertaining for me in the slightest. I sat through without any chuckles or emotion for 40 minutes. I didn't care about anyone or what was going on, which is already a basic problem of the movie. This is when I shut it off.
Aside from the opening credits, is Queen really apparent in this movie? The title sequence was great, and that was my favorite part of the movie because I actually heard a Queen song. Everything else was basically scored decently, but wasn't memorable.
Flash Gordon was made to be a campy and corny geek movie. If it was made to be a serious movie with better writing, cast, and soundtrack, than it could have been epic. Since it went the corny route, it should have been funnier and more entertaining than it was.
Nostalgia can be a ***** for some, I suppose.
Am I alone here?
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