Customer Reviews

Barbarella Queen of the Gal

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I first saw this movie in a small theater outside West Point, NY in 1968. I remember the theater as it had moths on top of the popcorn in the dispensing machine. The movie was innovative for the time. And one of the characters is Duran Duran the inspiration for the band by the same name.

In the 41st-century astronaut Barbarella (Jane Fonda) receives a message from the President of Earth (Claude Dauphin) and is tasked with a mission to track down a threat to the earth, the scientist Duran Duran (Milo O'Shea,) inventor of the "positronic ray." On her quest she must go through many trials and tribulations. We get to experience them vicariously. Put your tongue back in.

Will she find Duran Duran before it is too late?

When Jane looks back on her extensive career this will be her crowning performance. She never really re-captured that Barbarella spark.

I think that Barbarella inspired the opening scene of "My Stepmother is an Alien."

This movie is a trip. In spite of what agenda-driven, right-wingers have to say about it, based on their personal dislike for Jane Fonda and her oppinions of the Vietnam war, this movie is a true classic. It's campy to a point that it makes you think how serious, pragmatic and booring people have become over the past decades. It's a total groovie trip. It doesn't take itself seriously at any moment. And best of all, it actually has lines to read between.

You want classic Sci Fi with visionary special effects and mind-bending themes? Check out STAR WARS or 2001! You want a zero gravity striptease, costumes that fall off at a moment's notice, and a space craft with wall to wall shag carpeting traveling through a lava lamp? BARBARELLA fits the bill! This is the widescreen DVD version with no edits. Although I have heard rumors of a more racy cut somewhere out there, this is not the PG rerelease from the 70s. See the movie Jane Fonda wants you to forget! Too bad because she's sexy, funny, and beautiful here. Groove to the soundtrack of Phil Spector rip-offs, watch in awe as she seduces ... well... everyone in the film (incuding a female tyrant with a horn!). But still, it's pretty tame and innocent fun. I watch this when I want to be in a good mood. It's silly, fluffy fun! A pink bunny if you will.

Barbarella is a bad film on so many levels that I cannot even begin to pick it apart. But in an age when the recent Charlie's Angels movies are considered "empowering" for women and video game heroines offer more than any human vixen can, Barbarella looks almost classy. It is a movie that makes no apologies; everything is gratuitious and no one tries to justify its atrocities of political incorrectness. To those who were not around when it was originally released (myself being 16 years too late), picture an Austin Powers movie but replace Mike Myers with--all right, Jane Fonda has no modern equivalent--but it's the same kind of camp without the irony. I wish movies like this could be made today without the pretense of insisting that scantily clad heroines are "positive female role models." It's so sleazy and witty at the same time. It's truly awful and yet that's what makes it endearing.

Jane Fonda may regret opting Barbarella as one of her earlier films, but fans of bad camp and cult sci-fi are happy to see the actress in this horridly funny sixties film.

Fonda plays the title role of a spaice vixen / astronaut in the exceptionally distant yet sixties-fied future. When genius but mad scientist Dr. Duran Duran (presumably from whom the band took their name) disappears, Barbarella is sent to track him down and given weapons she has no clue how to use (war has been outlawed for ages) and little warning of the planet she'll be landing on.

Pursued by evil children with cannibalistic dolls and rescued by a tough man in furs, Barbarella finds out about real sex (thankfully not pictured) when she offers to use a mood-linking pill, the 41st century method of copulation. From there she's off to a city of evil, avarice, and sin, to be caught by the demented Dr. Duran and put through such tortures as a cage of pecking budgies to the doctor's notorious and sensual machine for execution by sheer pleasure to a lake of liquid evil whose effects look to have been done by lava lamp. Along the way she meets various helpers (most of whom she ends up sleeping with), including a blind angel named Pygar.

Barbarella's costumes vary with each scene, all skin-tight and definitely satirizing the garb of women of golden-age science fiction. On the whole, the movie pokes fun at the field of early science fiction rather well with a heaping helping of sixties hippie culture thrown in for good measure.

Barbarella is by no means a good movie, but it is excellent fare for fans of campy sci-fi that would be right at home on MST:3K and quite humorous when taken with a grain of salt.

Jane Fonda may regret opting Barbarella as one of her earlier films, but fans of bad camp and cult sci-fi are happy to see the actress in this horridly funny sixties film.

Fonda plays the title role of a spaice vixen / astronaut in the exceptionally distant yet sixties-fied future. When genius but mad scientist Dr. Duran Duran (presumably from whom the band took their name) disappears, Barbarella is sent to track him down and given weapons she has no clue how to use (war has been outlawed for ages) and little warning of the planet she'll be landing on.

Pursued by evil children with cannibalistic dolls and rescued by a tough man in furs, Barbarella finds out about real sex (thankfully not pictured) when she offers to use a mood-linking pill, the 41st century method of copulation. From there she's off to a city of evil, avarice, and sin, to be caught by the demented Dr. Duran and put through such tortures as a cage of pecking budgies to the doctor's notorious and sensual machine for execution by sheer pleasure to a lake of liquid evil whose effects look to have been done by lava lamp. Along the way she meets various helpers (most of whom she ends up sleeping with), including a blind angel named Pygar.

Barbarella's costumes vary with each scene, all skin-tight and definitely satirizing the garb of women of golden-age science fiction. On the whole, the movie pokes fun at the field of early science fiction rather well with a heaping helping of sixties hippie culture thrown in for good measure. The DVD doesn't include any exceptional special features.

Barbarella is by no means a good movie, but it is excellent fare for fans of campy sci-fi that would be right at home on MST:3K and quite humorous when taken with a grain of salt.

Yes, camp and lots of eye candy, if you're into ultrasexy young nymphettes floating around in cush love-den space pads. The opening credits set the tone and are rightly memorable, but for me the zenith of the film is right after Fonda has broken the Orgasmatron and she just sizzles in ecstasy. Whoa. Makes me wish I were around when this movie came out... oh, and that I had the necessary fame and fortune to date this chick. Oh well, her loss, poor thing.

I first saw Barbarella when I was 12. It was on the USA network on July of 1987. I didn't really know what was happening, and I was reading the Sunday comics while watching it. But the scene that got my 12 year old mind's attention was when Barbarella appeared to be naked in some sort of strange box with cables and lights all around it.
The evil doctor appeared to be playing a musical tune on it and the machine started to do a wave motion over her body. She was squealing and smiling and looking nervous and happy at the same time.
The machine was doing something to her, but I wasn't sure what. All I remembered was that whatever it was doing, it was doing it to her naked body.
That scene and the vision of her naked in the machine was my obsession for the next three years as I searched every video store to find the movie. At that time you couldn't find it anywhere. It was out of print and no one seemed to know what I was asking for.
Well to make a long story short, here we are over 15 years later and I have a massive Barbarella collection. I am still obsessed with Barbarella and the scene where she is tortured inside the sex machine. It is still one of the most erotic things I've ever seen in any movie. Even hardcore porn, which really bores me, doesn't top it.
The idea that a woman can be forced to endure incredibly intense yet unbearable sexual pleasure as a form of torture fascinates me.
Even cartoons borrowed the Sex Machine scene. An Anime cartoon called F3: Frantic, Frustrated, and Female showed the girl being subjected to a tireless sex machine being operated through a musical keyboard by a mad scientist.
I am not alone here. There are websites devoted to Barbarella and the sex machine as well as numerous other Barbarella sites.
The dvd only contains the movie and the trailer, nothing more.
I would love to see an Ultimate Edition Barbarella DVD with deleted scenes, extended takes, Jane Fonda commentary, still photos, wide screen and full screen options, all the bells and whistles but I know it will never happen.
I give the dvd four stars because for as popular as this movie has become, the dvd should have had more on it.
This movie still contains the Ultimate Sexual Fantasy for me and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have for the last 15 years.

If you want to see an intellectual sci-fi film, this is NOT it! Jane Fonda stars as the queen of the galaxy, Barbarella and its just a fun, campy film in outer space with bizarre flesh eating dolls, an orgasm-maker machine, and a bunch of horny people. The images in the film are cool to watch and I think its enjoyable for those that enjoy campy movies like "Flash Gordon" or the 70s Wonder Woman series. I'm not sure why the DVD has an "R" rating because the VHS I have is a PG. I think it fits more with a PG-13 because of the sex stuff that kids probably wouldn't understand (orgasm machine, etc...) but definitely NOT "r" rated. You'll be disappointed if you're looking for "R" rated material.

If you want to see one of the best sci-fi flicks watch this one...

It has set a standard in 60's design and it's utterly corny and jane Fonda is finger lickin' amazing.....

This is one of my faves of all time....

(And yes I like Tarkovsky and Kubrick too.......)