Official Synopsis
Jane Fonda stars as the titular heroine who lands on the planet Lythion in the year 40,000. Faced with robots, monsters and evil of varying stripes, she must vanquish her enemies, all while attempting—and failing—to keep her skin-tight spacesuit on. Along the way she receives assistance from a variety of handsome men, each of whom receives her uninhibited appreciation. Directed by Roger Vadim (Fonda’s ex-husband), BARBARELLA is a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future and the film is replete with psychedelic set designs, far-out characters and an outrageously entertaining story set amongst the stars.
This film was definitely a product of the 60s (1968 to be exact), that waved goodbye to a peaceful, loving generation. It’s rated PG (how???), so you will get some playful violence in this film that really does cater to a more sensual time in history. Lots more ‘love’ than traditional movie violence when it comes to good versus evil. For example, in one scene our hero finds herself trapped in a piano-like device that strips her down and gives her tortuous pleasure that is suppose to kill her by the crescendo of the song. You can only see Fonda’s head sticking out, but her reaction is something compared to Meg Ryan’s orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally.
You get a lot of that throughout the film. Lots of scantily clad men and women, and just moments of wackiness mixed with the same overall message of ‘love’. For a movie of this type, it’s incredibly consistent on its message (you’ll appreciate that).
The goofiness of the content mixed with the lighthearted acting really speaks to a generation of folks that lived (and I mean LIVED) in the 60s. It might be a tad bit outdated, a lot bit when it comes to ridiculousness, but in the end it’s still a firm representation of a lot of things from that era. I mean, there has to be a good reason why this movie survived for so long, as it isn’t the best film in the world. It’s that central theme that has kept it alive, and the sole reason why this film is getting a Blu-ray upgrade.
Speaking of the Blu-ray, the HD transfer is pretty darn solid. You get a few artifacts here and there in the picture, but for the most part the Blu-ray upgrade is darn good. Paramount did a fine job with cleaning up everything and making sure that this Blu-ray debut was worthy of your money. They could have easily written it off as another ‘anniversary edition’, but they didn’t. The colors of the sets, costumes and even some of the effects is pretty clean and crisp. You won’t find any color banding or graininess in the shots, though the effects are a bit dated. I applaud them for the effort, as it’s definitely a worthy release for your time and money.
The audio comes to you in TrueHD mono, which probably could have been mastered to 5.1, but I’m not sure my neighbors need to hear sensual screams from my speaker set up. Regardless of mastering, you still do get a very clean audio track with this Blu-ray.
Sadly, there are no special features, so this release is purely about the film and HD upgrade. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but it would have been nice to hear some commentary about it.
