10. Hero Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) wears a T-Shirt with his own name written on it. In large red letters. Just in case he or we forget his identity.
9. The entire production, from backdrops to flowing gold capes and that Sherwood Forrest planet, looks like a 1940s Technicolor Errol Flynn adventure film, rolled up in a well-read comic book, doused in LSD, and smoked by Salvador Dali.
8. Anytime Timothy Dalton (a future James Bond) gets to play a piss ant, there will be scenery chewing genius. No Brit does hissy fit better. (See “Hot Fuzz” for further clarification.)
7. Only this British/Italian production could get away with so much sexual banter in a children’s film. It’s like an outer space-set child's production of “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” With half-naked birdmen.
6. The delirious soundtrack by Queen. “Flash! Ah-ha! Savior of the universe!” … “Flash! Ah-ha! He’s a miracle!” The best rock-opera comic-book film score ever written.
5. Scenes like this: A co-pilot asks Flash for an autograph for his “son,” Buzz, before immediately being called “Buzz” by the pilot. Also, the across-the-galaxy telepathic scene where Flash, being seduced by an evil princess, tells his new girlfriend (Melody Anderson) to “hang up.” This is comedy done right.
4. As the titular hero, Jones is a block of lifeless granite. No expression. No blinking. And that flat, dull voice of his that sounds dubbed by another guy altogether? It was dubbed by another guy. I love super hero movies where the filmmakers beg you to root for …
3. The villain. Max Von Sydow, who previously played Jesus (“The Greatest Story Ever Told”) and a doomed priest (“The Exorcist”), has never been so good at being this bad as Emperor Ming. (“Are your men on the right pills? Maybe you should execute their trainer.”) Hail Ming!
2. The climatic wedding scene. The best scene in the film, and possibly funnier than the nuptials in “The Princess Bride.” Certainly more fatal. Who knew evil alien space emperors had priests on hand?
1. From the opening credits to “The End?,” this flick strives to be wonderfully, spectacularly, laugh-out-loud, jaw-dropping bad. And it does so brilliantly. Children get a perfect big-screen production of an adventure comic book come to life. Adults get a riotous sex comedy with not a little S&M tossed in. Both get silly action. It’d almost all be offensive, but it’s just too funny. For Greatest Bad Movies of All Time, “Flash Gordon” is the savior of my movie universe. A
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