This installment of the Cobra series provides another juvenile pulp fantasy that is silly as ever, closer to Barbarella and James Bond (in Moonraker mode) than Star Wars, in which the space scoundrel can't help himself but getting entangled with nothing but the finest of female specimen to be found in space.
There's unashamed fan service, with a female "scientist" called Utopia More dressed like an erotic dancer, wearing little more than a thong, shot from nothing but the most sexy rear angles. If academia ever gets this hot in the future, count me in.
Feminists will probably cringe at the female mutants used as deadly wildcats by one of the antagonist, constantly on all fours. But for those who can't distinguish sexy from sexist, the Cobra series should be a screaming no no to begin with.
There's not much explanation of Cobra's back story, we never learn about his mutation, the psycho-gun that his left arm can turn to, or how he met his android companion (Lady Armaroid). Cobra has lost his memory and does seek to regain it.
But despite that opportunity, the story ultimately remains little more than an excuse for plenty of entertaining and fairly creative action sequences and of course has to involve the fate of the entire galaxy. There's also the familiar light tone as things never get too serious. Arguably the plot is as scantily clad as Utopia More (a not so subtle reference to Thomas, get it) and you're mostly expected to just enjoy the view. A good one to watch when you're tired.
Only 4 episodes of roughly 25 minutes kind of make this another movie. Animation is reasonably faithful to the original but obviously modernized and looks pretty slick. However the villain, Crystal Boy (sometimes called Crystal Bowie), while strong as ever, does not look as epic as in the 1982 movie.
The music can be nice (intro fits well) but later on it gets a bit odd at times, borrowing too heavily from John William's score of The Phantom Menace. Yello's silly sexy tunes from the original fllm's intro are also sorely missed.
All in all they could have done much worse. It's little more than a mindless and slightly wet dream, but very self conscious and displaying plenty of the animators' craftmanship.
