DN:FILM Life After Flash
It’s hard to recall that before Flash Gordon was a fair-haired galactic god, the character in 1980’s kitschy cult movie of the same name was a star quarterback for the New York Jets. And that was the quasi-superhero’s so-called superpower that would save the world: his football-chucking athleticism. Odd, yet so righteously all-American.
Exalted in Lisa Downs’ adoring doc LIFE AFTER FLASH, Flash (played by ripped ex-Marine Sam J. Jones) finds himself accidentally rocketed into space to a cornea-curdling cuckoo land of soaring hawkmen, green-faced midgets and the estimable Max von Sydow bedecked in flummoxing Fu Manchu facial hair and a flowing red silk cloak. This is the planet Mongo and von Sydow, clinging to his dignity, is the nefarious and wizardly Emperor Ming the Merciless. You either accept this or stroll over to “The Goonies” booth.
A film-nerd’s dream, the doc embraces, nay, bearhugs, Flash and his jut-jawed mythology, enlisting a galaxy of voices—Stan Lee, director Robert Rodriguez and a passel of genre performers—to lionize the film in a richly informative orgy of nostalgia. (Natch, most of the interviews happen at Comic Con and similar geekoid jamborees.) The movie’s actors and director Mike Hodges delightfully chime in.
Bluff but affable, blocky and bulked-out as if made of Legos, Jones, 64, is the cynosure of the doc, except when he’s not. His life is mildly interesting: Hollywood, surprise, proved a rocky road, and his personal travails are par for the course. But it’s the backstage drama of making “Flash Gordon” that grips. From legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis’ run-ins with Jones and the pre-CGI effects out of an Atari game gone berserk; to Queen’s gloriously operatic theme song, which co-star Topol calls "the best thing in the movie,” and the running squabble about the film as a straight-faced epic or comic-book send-up.
In this classic pop-culture resurrection narrative—as middle-aged fans crave a nostalgia fix, Jones is cool again—there is good news. Jones lands a self-parodying role in the hit Seth McFarland comedies “Ted” and “Ted 2” and revels in signing autographs and posing for selfies. “Did I ever want to step away from being the image of Flash Gordon?” Jones asks. This rollicking portrait provides the answer: not in a million light years.
On VOD, including iTunes, Google Play and Hulu; on Blu-ray and DVD on March 26.