The movie itself is pure fun, and its status has only benefitted from the resurgence of interest in Queen, who wrote and performed the original score.

Full Review | Sep 7, 2022

If the character of Flash Gordon reminds you of Buster Crabbe's exploits in vintage 1930s serials, then this new version of Flash Gordon is definitely for you.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2022

The result is a campy, jokey spoof that resembles nothing more than an expensive remake of Flesh Gordon without the sex, and also without that much cheaper movie's good special effects.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2022

While it is undoubtedly messy, silly and incoherent, Flash Gordon still works 40 years on from its original release.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 5, 2022

Once upon a time, comic book movies weren't always such serious affairs.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 10, 2021

The combination of so many forms of bad filmmaking results in a campy bit of surreally over-the-top fun.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 6, 2020

Basically, whether laughing with this film, or at it, you'll have a blast.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 10, 2020

Director Mike Hodges' Flash Gordon is a wonderfully executed piece of science fiction cinema. It's a film which has become a much deserved cult classic since its original release way back in 1980.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 7, 2020

You'll never see anything else quite like it.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2020

A kaleidoscopic trip, Flash Gordon remains a cheerful tale of rich textural spaces.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2020

Elements of it may have aged more like a discarded pint of warm beer than a fine wine, but that doesn't prevent it from being a sheer delight from start to finish - in all of its ultra-camp glory.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2020

Perhaps, like many a superhero film, this one flags just a little in the final battle sequences, but Von Sydow is always there to keep things bizarre, playing it absolutely straight.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 31, 2020

a mid-air skirmish of corny old-fashioned retrofuturism and knowing postmodernism, even as its veneer of homespun innocence keeps being subverted by the corrupting powers of kink.

Full Review | Jul 31, 2020

In between brittle skies and other galactic junk, the adults are likely to doze off. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 20, 2019

Though the special effects are on the cheesy side and the direction little more than workmanlike, Flash Gordon has the good, giddy grace never to take itself seriously.

Full Review | Jul 19, 2019

While it's not the best of the sci-fi genre, you don't have to go to a galaxy far, far away to enjoy every minute of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 9.5/10 | Jun 29, 2015

...a terminally underwhelming sci-fi epic that may keep small children amused, admittedly, but will leave adults bored to tears.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 22, 2012

This is like a drug-induced sexy fever dream of what the 80s had turned into for much of science fiction cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 1, 2012

With gaudy sets and costumes by Fellini's favourite designer, Danilo Donati, and ultra-camp performances throughout, this is a film that positively revels in its cheesiness.

Full Review | Mar 10, 2011

Sci-fi comic-strip movie is too violent for younger kids.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 7, 2010