Never has the concept of “one for the diehard fans” been so applicable as it is to Timo Vuorensola’s scattershot, stakes-free, self-consciously wacky space comedy. Its existence is baffling until you realise that this sequel to a 2012 sci-fi yarn about Nazis on the moon, was entirely crowd-funded.
The Coming Race kicks off in 2047. Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war and the thousand or so human survivors have relocated to a former Nazi base on the moon. They are led nominally by the ailing, regal Renate (Julia Dietze) but her daughter, plucky narrator-heroine Obi (Lara Rossi), is the one who’s really in charge. (Her Star Wars nod of a name is one of many gratuitous hat-tips to better and more successful cultural properties.)
Obi has a run-in with Führer Kortzfleisch (Udo Kier) that reveals the existence of a magical healing energy source. (Kortzfleisch lops off a finger and – lo! – it grows back!) So she and a rag-tag crew of characters, each defined by a single quality, drive a rust-bucket spaceship to the centre of the Earth: source of the source, but also home to dinosaurs and reptilian Nazis.
These are called “Vril”, and loosely inspired by an 1871 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, also called The Coming Race. One dinner party has Vril versions of Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, Kim Jong-un and Caligula, among other historic brutes. This scene epitomises the logic at play in the superficial script: if it looks surreal, put it in without buildup or consequence.
Australian man-mountain and martial arts pro Kit Dale packs energy as well as punch as an affable action hero; Vladimir Burlakov pulls off the feat of mangling a Russian accent despite hailing from Moscow; Tom Green suffers impassively as the leader of a technology cult of “Jobsists”. Most committed is Lara Rossi who attempts the impossibleas a grounding presence in a gravity-free spectacle.
