Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning

So Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is an amateur production. There isn't much in the film that betrays this — even most of the acting would fail to put a Hollywood B production into shame, and there are some brilliant cases of casting, and even a couple of superb actors.

In the Pirkinning is above all an action-adventure film with seemingly big-budget special effects — except that the special effects budget is dirt cheap. It is also a fairly well working comedy — of the darker kind, with a touch of political satire and a heavy dose of teevee science fiction parody.

Oh yeah, and it has scantily clad females on the bridge (but they have an EDGE!).

There's something intangibly Finnish about all Finnish movies, and this one is no exception. I don't know if it is the language, or if it is the people, or if it is the landscape — perhaps it is all of them. This movie would look and sound very different had it been produced in just about any other country by people of any other nationality. Bizarrely, it also is, in my opinion, one of the best films ever made in Finland. (I'm sure some other people will disagree.)

The movie is in Finnish. Although some of the jokes rather depend on understanding the Finnish language or the Finnish culture, they are in the minority, and most of the fun is universally understandable. Of course, a loyal teevee scifi fan will find a lot of extra laughs and recognize several subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) references to memorable shows and movies, often with a twist.

In short, In the Pirkinning is Mel Brooks' Spaceballs with actual balls, Finnish style.

You have to see this movie. The opening scene was so amazingly professional that i thought i had downloaded the wrong film. But, the opening joke was so terribly cliché'd that i realized i got the right one.

I honestly could not tell the difference between the graphics in this movie and in a real start trek movie. Its simply amazing. I'd love to know what they use for CGI tools and how big is the rendering farm.

The scenes on-board the space ships were great, the sets were totally believable (much better than an original STAR TREK set, and most were BETTER than a ST:TNG set.) The acting was very good, the jokes were funny, the only thing separating this movie from a Hollywood film is a little bit of je-ne sais quois.

All in all, the most AMAZING amateur film i've ever seen, they should give these guys $10M and a team of 5 Hollywood (o.k., maybe new york) writers, and see what they can do in 3.5 years, rather than 7.

I just returned from the first tour screening. The place was a small club at the heart of Turku, and built for bands to perform rather than a movie theater, but the mood was great. The crew introduced themselves, and were greeted with the traditional contained cheering.

The movie started with elegant new title design and theme music, quality not one bit shy of a true professional movie. The movie was technically extremely well dome throughout the picture, not just on some money shots with garbage filler as often is the case with such films. Effects are top-notch, and post-processing is as good as DV can ever offer.

Sound mix was good. Sometimes the dialogue got a bit muffled, but the rest of the soundtrack just boomed with POWER! You'll want a good audio set with this one.

The story starts out a bit awkward as was expected, given that the heroes were stranded on the 21st century earth in the last movie. Things smooth out quickly, and the plot gets underway. The story takes twists from absurd to serious and back to absurd, but the plot stays coherent.

The humor is all new, with lots of stuff mixed together. There are the usual low-brow jokes and Adam Sandler acts, then there is Buster Keaton / Harold Lloyd -esque slapstick and rather clever pokes at the various sci-fi franchises, as well as sci-fi in general. There is even a good measure of political satire thrown in. As a whole, the movie is more a black comedy.

The pacing of the movie is really well done. There is no tarrying around, and the interest keeps on. There's no too much happening at the same time either. The balance is well kept.

Acting was the most varied issue. There were few professional actors, even one superstar by local measure (Kari Väänänen), and their performance truly stood out. Quite some of the not-so-professional performances were quite enjoyable. There were no really terrible scenes, at worst the acting was OK.

As many long-awaited movies have got over-hyped and then fallen flat, I had suppressed some of the hopes, but this movie really lives up to (and exceeds) any expectation I've had. The plot is NOT what you'd find in such a movie made in Hollywood; the humor is quite dark at times and silly at others, and the satire stings in every direction. If there was an 'european art movie' with Stuff! Blowing! Up! it would probably look like this movie.

I give it a ****½/*****

I was very eager when I sat down to watch the movie, did it meet it's expectations or not? Well I'm eased to say it did, and with a long shot as well. The whole world domination thing with a comedical straw is brilliant and a bit goofy (as it should be). Well, what you say, be proud Finland, a very good comedy-parody production of a well known sci-fi series. And I'm sure both you and me sometimes had wondered what would happen if the time directive would have been broken, well you have the answer just right here :). Summary: A very well made Finnish movie that makes a laugh out of both the Babylon and the star trek series with a success. The special effects are good for a movie in this class, and the acting is very well done good as well. The whole making fun of the emperor thing is brilliant, and the relates to the time directive is good as well. The jokes are funny as well, so I enjoyed this movie very much and recommend it for every star trek and babylon5 fan out there. I give this 10/10 for as this isn't the ordinary Hollywood production and very much deserve it. Thank you Finland !

The trailer already whetted my appetite. But the movie itself is outstanding. If you are a fan of Star Trek, Babylon 5, etc you have probably also thought of some scenes you would like to see. For me this movie comes very close. The CGI effects can only be described as awesome. Every scene breathes the love of the staff for details. Especially the battle scenes are outstanding and give every Star Wars movie a run for its money. The plot is also masterly constructed. The tension builds up in the first twenty minutes or so and reaches several peaks after that. The story has a great tongue-in-cheek attitude. The characters are only slightly exaggerated compared to their respective originals which keeps them from getting on your nerves too fast. Fortunately the actors avoid overacting - which impressed me as this is still a fan movie after all. The only drawback is that the audio is Finish with English sub-titles. But what the heck: Hearing the tone of Pirk's derogatory remarks is compensation enough.