NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

GazerRise Fantastic!

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Armand a B movie. unrealistic adventures, pieces of Sci Fi, almost nice special effects and Australia of beautiful images. not bad because it is out of ambitions.not original because the recipes is to old to be impressive. only kind of craft. charming in few scenes, boring in another, fake in all. but not waste of time. first, for who loves this kind of gems from another age of cinema. than - for the hunters of low budget movies in which drops of craziness of a scriptwriter is essential. in fact, it is only fruit of breaking news, need of new sensations and passion for conspiracies. and, with this virtues, it can be bearable.

demelewis It's difficult to know what the film-makers were trying to achieve here. One minute it wants to be a serious low-budget sci-fi, next an homage to 50's B movies, next it's a parody, then a comedy, etc. And the trouble is, you get the impression that if it would have stuck to one of those genres, it wouldn't have been half bad.Because ironically enough, there is actually some good acting on show here from most of the cast, in spite of the vast majority of the them being slightly too old for their various roles, and the lack of a clearly defined tone for the movie. This is notwithstanding Jak Wyld's appalling attempt at a 'good old boy southern US drawl' for the character of Cpl Updike, which continuously lapses into his native Australian, detracting terribly from any semblance of the suspension of belief one manages to muster, particularly given the way it flips from genre-to-genre. Clearly Wyld can act, but he quite clearly can't do a consistent Yank accent, which makes one think that a few additional takes might have yielded a better result; something the director should perhaps have considered, instead of rushing to get it in the can, which certainly only adds to the problems this movie has.Similarly, there is decent camera-work and art direction on show for the many scenes, much of it referencing well-known war movies in a clever way if you are familiar with them, but then we come to the not-quite-so-special, special effects, which only serve to jar terribly with the good camera work. It's tempting to imagine that these effects are intended to be self-referentially bad as an homage to the 1950's era B-movies which the 25th Reich is obviously attempting to channel, but the trouble is, they are neither cheesy enough, nor convincing enough as to be either an in-joke or a serious attempt at persuading us of either intent.In fairness, one or two effects are pretty good. Similarly one or two are cheesy enough to almost convince us it was a deliberate attempt to 'do a Plan 9 from Outer Space', but the majority fall firmly between these two stools and the end result is that it just looks like bad film-making.As if these gripes were not enough of a problem, some scenes are appalling misjudged, notably one which was obviously intended to be an (ill-advised) humorous reference to the rape-scene in the movie Deliverance, but instead (of course) ends up being simply in very bad taste indeed. Not to mention the fact that it sticks out like a sore thumb as far as the rest of the movie's tone is concerned, especially when the movie is already having problems in this area.Comparisons with Iron Sky - largely because of the Nazi 'what if?' subject material - will doubtless be drawn, however, where Iron Sky succeeds massively in hitting its target, the 25th Reich is a film which attempts to mash up a few genres and ends up doing a disservice to all of them. There are flashes of genuine talent here from the director and indeed some of the cast and production crew, which leads one to imagine that we might expect great things from some of those involved in this thing, but this movie isn't one of them.

Genegeoffrey This is a beautifully crafted low budget film from Australia. It plays with the old B grade movie style with a wicked and subversive sense of humour. The 25 Reich embodies all the was good about B grade films and plays and toys with all that was bad. An absolute must for film lovers with a great sense of humour. It have already been written about before but The 25 Reich has one of the must bizarre and disturbing scenes in cinema history. I will not spoil it but it takes the idea of alien "invasion" to a new level. This film plays with genre in a really refreshing manner and the Director has steered the narrative and characters on a wild and imaginative journey. In the cinema this film is great fun but also a great fun night for a DVD with friends.

Thorney71 Australian cinema has a long tradition of cultivating, odd, fascinating genre hybrids, films that mix traditional movie elements with aspects of the local culture to create a unique blend. Russell Mulcahy (after his various Europop music videos, and before the singular atrocity of HIGHLANDER 2) directed RAZORBACK, a smart, garish monster-on-the-loose saga that remains a particular highlight of his career. Simon Wincer, prolific director of family friendly fare such as FREE WILLY, crafted the appealingly nasty slasher movie SNAPSHOT with Sigrid Thornton and a menacing Mr Whippy (a popular ice-cream franchise signalled by a white van continually playing a friendly jingle). George Miller's repeated odes to local car culture, samurai ethics and post-apocalyptic barbarism are other obvious examples. One of the most fascinating local examples of this tendency in recent years is THE 25TH Reich, a WWII men- on-a-mission saga that blends soldiers in combat, time travel, and everyone's favourite foe from recent German political history. The result is a witty, engaging mix of eccentric SF ideas, low-budget craft, chutzpah, and sheer cinematic balls. You probably haven't seen anything like this in a long while, or possibly ever. (THE 25TH Reich does play off an alternate vision of the present and future - viewed through the lens of resurgent Nazism, to alternately comedic and horrific effect - ala Philip K. Dick's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE and FATHERLAND by Robert Harris, two SF novels that also examine the trope of Nazis triumphing during the second World War to different ends).American soldiers circa WW2 hunt a rogue puma in the Australian outback, then stumble across mysterious events that will transport them through time. An alternate reality presents them with an old foe that has re-armed itself with spectacular new technological advances. The soldiers must fight numerous battles - some with their newly discovered enemy, others closer to home - to succeed in their mission and possibly save the world. THE 25TH Reich holds a number of surprises for viewers, many of which are best not revealed in this review. Like the characters on screen, the filmmakers wield high-tech technology (the film was shot in widescreen HD on the RED camera) and more down-and-dirty methods (the movie takes place in the middle of the arid Australian bush, and the outback locales are spectacular throughout) to craft a fun and amusing story. Some nasty, violent mutant critters make various appearances, and the Nazi's sinister advances with robotics have to be seen to be believed. (The fate of one major character captured by a mechanical adversary is a grotesquely funny highlight). Some initially cornball characters eventually gain enough depth to stick in the mind after the film's conclusion, and the movie carries its wild ideas - conveyed through punchy action scenes and some nutty but slick special FX - to a clever and creepy conclusion with a minimum of fuss. All up, THE 25TH Reich is a nice change of pace in this time of cautious, corporate filmmaking by numbers, and is well worth both seeking out and checking out.