February 7, 2013

Barbarella

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 6 of 6.



Barbarella, 1968. A sexy space agent searches for a dangerous man on an alien planet.

Directed by Roger Vadim. Written by Terry Southern & Vadim, with Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas & Tudor Gates, based on a comic by Jean-Claude Forest. Starring Jane Fonda.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). Mostly great. Occasionally terrible.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent). Fonda is good. She has the perfect delivery to turn bad lines into funny lines.
Music: 1/4 (Bad). I really want to love this soundtrack. Its heart is in the right place. It just happens to be awful.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). The sole point of this movie is Jane Fonda in (and out of) a series of skimpy costumes. And in that they have succeeded. Otherwise, though, there's not much. There's some humor, but not enough. There's an attempt at campy space adventure, but it's not any fun. And there's even some action - some of the worst action scenes this side of Michael Bay.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.7/4 (Eh)

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