By Geno McGahee
The very first thing I need to say is that Ming is one of the biggest pricks in movie history. We start with Ming, played by Max von Sydow, causing all sorts of damage to Earth because he enjoys it. He has buttons like “earthquake” that he hits to destroy stuff and then laughs maniacally after he does it. I am not sure what his motives are, outside of just being a real prick.
FLASH GORDON was supposed to be a trilogy but that wasn’t to be because it bombed at the box office. Made on a 35 million dollar budget, the film only recouped 27 million back and the lead, Sam J. Jones was pretty pissed. He said “Flash Gordon is a miracle my ass” when he heard he wasn’t coming back for two more films and he didn’t even come back to record his voice. Apparently, half of the film is not really the voice of Jones.
Flash Gordon and Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) are in a plane and, once again, Ming is fucking with shit. He’s throwing turbulence at them, eventually causing them to crash into the lab of Dr. Zarkov (Topol). Zarkov tricks them into his rocket ship and the mission is on to go see Ming and shove that weather machine right up his ass.
The trio lands on Mongo and Flash tries to make friends with the soldiers Ming sent down to take them in. They kick the shit out of Flash and their costumes sure are flashy. Ming likes gold apparently and puts every one of his guys in it. Mongo wouldn’t be such a shit hole if he wasn’t about all that bling.
In the palace of Ming, he immediately shows what a fucking prick he is. He kills one dude that refused to commit suicide to show loyalty and then snuffed out a lizard man that was trying to haul ass out of the kingdom. When Flash can’t keep his mouth shut, noting that “this guy Ming is a psycho,” he becomes the focus, but we get the answer as to why Ming is attacking earth. When asked “why,” Ming responds with “why not?” Good enough I guess.
Ming’s ring can give orgasms. He points it at Dale and gives her total pleasure and Flash calls it “sensational.” That’s pretty fucked up. Most guys that would have their girl ring fucked by Ming would not think it was awesome. I don’t think most guys would at least. I would bet that 60% of men would not want their girl ring fucked by Ming.
Ming’s got a hot daughter, Prince Aura (Ornella Muti), and she spares the life of Flash, but she is also fucking Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) on the side. I think she gets around. Her pleas to her dad to spare him only buys him some time. Ming wants to execute him and ties him up in his sexual dungeon with a bunch of lizard men. I think Ming might swing both ways. Why else would he put Flash in little leather panties? In the unreleased Ming DVD commentary, I bet he says “damn, those leather panties are a miracle.”
Ming has to be in the illuminati. They have all sorts of masonic and illuminati symbolism in this.
Aura saves the life of Flash, noting “if you like my dad, you’ll think I’m twice as nice.” Thank god Aura forces Flash to put on a uniform. There is no reason to keep that mother fucker in leather panties for 15 minutes of the film. Maybe they were sponsored by a company that made them.
After Aura comes onto Flash, which he gladly accepts and who can blame him, Dale meets up with some of Ming’s love slaves and they offer her a drink from the galaxy of pleasure. I tried to book a trip to the galaxy of pleasure, but I couldn’t find it. I think this Covid shit has fucked everything up. It’s probably the travel ban.
OK, where the fuck did Dale learn how to fight? She escapes, kills one guard, takes his gun, does a flip and shoot maneuver to kill another and just kicks everyone’s ass. Zarkov meets up with her, but he’s brainwashed by Ming to do his bidding. Zarkov has been a fucking nuisance since the minute that they met him.
The group of people that live in the trees and dress like Robin Hood have this thing where they look for the right hole to stick their hand in. There’s something in one of the holes that will kill you if you pick the wrong one. This had to inspire glory holes. I’m sorry, I’m against glory holes. You never know what’s on the other side.
Zarkov and Dale go to see the winged dude, Prince Vultan (Brian Blessed), with a proposal to defeat Ming and that includes teaming up with his enemy, Prince Barin, and Flash Gordon. Meanwhile, Gordon is challenged to the glory hole game by Barin and it’s not fair. Barin insists that Gordon sticks it in every hole and he’s just not sold on it. Barin should have at least taken Gordon to a movie first.
Barin and Gordon continue their feud at Vultan’s palace in a final fight. They are battling on this moving platform with spikes that Vultan controls. Vultan doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He just wants to be amused and being a dickhead amuses him, especially when it hurts that pretentious prick, Barin. He’s probably upset that he never had a chance with Aura too. I don’t see many winged chicks in the community…just dudes that wear very little clothing and hang around with Vultan.
Barin and Gordon become BFFs when Gordon saves his life. They kill Ming’s number one guy, Klytus (Peter Wyngarde), and now the battle for control of Mongo is on. Klytus is another guy that had a thing for Aura and never got any, but how can he go downtown with a metal face? Why did he have that metal face to begin with?
Ming has a leather skull cap. Was it made out of the same leather panties that Gordon left behind? Ming with the panties on his head, offers Flash the kingdom of earth to rule in his name, but it’s refused when Flash finds out that the human race will be turned into slaves. Flash should have taken the deal. He could have married Aura and ruled earth and with all the pricks I know on earth, Flash shoving it up their ass every time they mouth off would be a pleasant change.
Dale and Aura get into a cat fight but when it settles down, Aura gives her poison to slip to Ming, but she refuses. She notes that she gave her word to Ming that she would be a good wife to him. What the fuck is that about? Ming has been a total fuck head from jump and she feels the need to be true to him? Maybe she’s in love or found out that he’s hung like a horse and has a tongue like Lassie. She ain’t giving that up.
Flash crashes the Ming-Dale wedding and Prince Barin and Vultan are helping to take down Ming and his army of gold weirdos. Flash gets Ming from behind and sticks it right through him with the wrong end of his rocket. Ming’s ring goes limp and he disappears, dropping the ring to the ground.
FLASH GORDON is fucking absurd. It is such an odd movie with all sorts of strange bullshit throughout, BUT how can you not love it? I laughed the entire movie. It is definitely worth a watch and it’s too bad that we didn’t get a sequel with Ming coming back to fuck shit up again. Whatever the case, I highly recommend watching this. If you’re old like me and you remember not liking it, like I do, give it another shot. It’s much better the second time around.
