Amazon.com essential video: Jane Fonda's memorable, zero-gravity striptease during the opening credits of this 1968 Roger Vadim movie is the closest the film comes to a liberated marriage of wit and sex. Based on a French comic strip, the story concerns the adventures of a 41st-century woman, who pretty much gets it on with whomever asks. The sci-fi sets were pretty interesting at the time, though they look rather anachronistic now. Appreciated today mostly as a camp classic, the movie is actually more trying than anything else. --Tom Keogh
Barbarella DVD An Early Jane Fonda movie - surprisingly well done. I love seeing her spinning around naked.
barbarella a wonderful story with a hint of adultism not bad for the time it was made
"What kind of girl are you? Have you no shame?!" The Good Things *The film has good video quality. A few color shifts and particles on the print perhaps, but is mostly clear, sharp, and colorful. *Some parts are actually pretty cool. The angelic alien and the Black Queen are great, and there are one or two neat fight scenes. *Some symbolism (particuarly some phalyc symbols). *Acting is not bad. A few good lines. *The costumes are excellent (although some people may find them too outlandish). *Some sets are great, with imaginative designs and props. As noted below, however, other sets are awful. *It is presented in Widescreen. Includes English and French audio.
The Bad Things *Some sets are great. Other sets are just plain terrible. Barbarella's ship is made of ugly brown shag carpet and moves in pretty lame ways to unconvincingly simulate movement. Another set was made entirely out of bags of air. On the other hand, this may just be something else great to laugh at. *Jane Fonda seems to act pretty well in this film, but her character is terrible. She acts stupidly and shows hardly any backbone. She's attacked by little dolls and birds, and she's so helpless! Maybe it's just the times, but I would have liked it much better if Barbarella was actually a strong and intelligent person instead of a ditz. *The plot is unremarkable. Barbarella has a task to find a mad scientists. She winds up falling from one peril to another, almost always as a result of dumb luck more than anything. *Not for kids. Contains some nudity, a bit of violence, and other parts of implied sexuality. *No subtitles. *No special features.
The Questionable Things *Some parts are completely laughable, usually unintentionally. *This whole film must have been made by hippies. Aside from the outdated styles, there's also a lot of talk of peace ("Now why would anybody want to create a weapon?!" she asks...), love ("love" becoming a universal salutation apparently), and free love (which runs rampant throughout). The whole film is loaded with ideas like this; some people may enjoy them, others may hate them. I found it very laughable. *Special effects may be slick for its time, but are notably outdated. It's similar to "Fantastic Voyage," only worse. *Goofy sound effects. *The music is very groovy and upbeat, adding to the psychadelic feel of the film. Some people seem to like it. I hate it.
This film is so bad, you'll either love it or hate it. The whole thing plays out like a sci-fi/fantasy version of "Austin Powers." There is a whole world of better sci-fi and fantasy, but if you want extreme cheesiness, this is the best in that regard.
I've seen a few scant bits of information, indicating that Robert Rodriguez is trying to remake the film. He can't do any worse than this, so I'll be looking forward to it...
Giggle and bounce "Barbarella" turns forty years old, the year this is written. If anything, its silliness has just gotten sillier over time.
Fonda herself embodies the biggest of the changes since this movie was made. This stars the old, giggly, pre-feminist, pre-political Fonda, the one willing to strip-tease all the way down to her sweet self during the opening credits. Another set of social changes happened when the Sexual Revolution turned into the AIDS Era. Back then, sex was good fun between grownups. So, in keeping with the times, casual (but not challenging) kinds of nudity appear throughout. This flick stands as close to Buck Rogers as to the current day, so borrows from Buck in the subtlety of acting, complexity of plot, and depth of characters - i.e., not a lot of any of them. The effects show it a pure product of its own time, though: blobby opticals with mattwork that looks naive to today's viewers. Then there's the costuming - imagine Mardi Gras, I mean the part that attentive parents steer their kiddies away from, blocks away, then add a Hollytwood budget. Barbarella's Lucite bra (that must have been uncomfortable) and Duran Duran's ocean-liner outfit stand out, but hardly represent the limit of what appears here.
The movie starts with a cute blonde (the 1968 version of Fonda) luxuriously undressing in a fur-lined spaceship - pink spaceship, if you must know. Let that image set your expectations. Back then, it was daring but campy. Now it looks cheesy and campy, but I mean that in the nicest way.
-- wiredweird
Barbarella Totally awful movie. I can understand why Jane Fonda was so embarassed for years.
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