Released in 2012 the original Iron Sky came out of nowhere and achieved cult success. It was a low budget tale of Nazis who had hidden on the dark side of the moon since the fall of the Third Reich. And their attempt to invade Earth in 2018. What it lacked in the budget it made up for in inventiveness, wit, and sheer audacity. There was immediate talk of a sequel, but it’s taken until now for Timo Vuorensola to bring us Iron Sky: The Coming Race.

Set in 2047 after the nuclear war that destroyed Earth. The last remaining survivors cling to life on the moon base run by Renate (Julia Dietze, Iron Sky). However, it’s her daughter Obi (Lara Rossi) who’s really running things. When survivors from Earth bring word of a secret city in the planet’s center Obi leads a team to check out their apparently perpetual power source. And possibly a way for the rest of them to return to Earth.

They do find the city. And it does have a strange energy source. It’s also run by shape-shifting lizard people, (where have I heard this before?), called the Vril. Run by a council composed of Vril versions of Hitler, Kim Jong-Un, Margret Thatcher, Caligula, and Vlad Putin among others.

Iron Sky: The Coming Race was shot on a crowdfunded budget of $21,000,000. There was a lot more to work with than on the original and the film certainly looks a lot better than the original. The script, however, is a mess. We get Udo Kier (Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, Chompy and The Girls) back as Wolfgang Kortzfleisch. And Tom Green, (Freddy Got Fingered) as the leader of a cult that worships Steve Jobs but nothing much is done with them. The film’s humour runs more to having Russian-born actor Vladimir Burlakov play his character with an accent stolen from the original Star Trek’s Chekov.

Along the way we get The Last Supper recreated with a collection of history’s major, and some rather minor, despots. And a few wannabe despots. A parody of Ben Hur’s chariot race and Hitler riding a dinosaur on the moon. Iron Sky: The Coming Race feels less like it had a script than they just filmed anything that seemed funny at the time. Some of it is, and some would have been if had been in any kind of context.

Maybe I’m just getting grumpy in my old age, but I only found this very occasionally funny. Depending on your sense of humour you might have a better response.

Iron Sky: The Coming Race is currently available in various countries including the UK. Check its website and Facebook page for upcoming releases elsewhere.