Barbarella Movie Review

People change. Before Jane Fonda was a political activist or a serious actress or a workout queen, she was, in the parlance of the times, a sex-kitten starlet. And what was once a boundary-challenging sf romp now carries a tame PG rating. Actually, the film has never been anything more than a tongue-in-cheek comedy, and it has become more than a little dated. It's based on the popular French comic strip drawn by Jean-Claude Forest, and brought to America in the pages of Evergreen magazine. The story has Fonda as a sexy bimbo who's sent by Earth's president in search of evil genius Duran Duran (Milo O'Shea), who has invented a new positronic ray weapon and is hiding out in a decadent city that has returned to a barbaric state of “neurotic irresponsibility.” In order to complete her mission, she must face biting dolls, leather robots, a blind angel (John Phillip Law), the wicked Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg), a clumsy revolutionary (David Hemmings), and a living labyrinth, all while appearing in (and out of) eight eccentric, sexy outfits. An attention-getting opening features Fonda in her famous zero-G strip tease. AKA: Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy.

1968 (PG) 98m/C FR IT Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, David Hemmings, Marcel Marceau, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O'Shea; D: Roger Vadim; W: Terry Southern; C: Claude Renoir; M: Charles Fox. VHS, Beta, LV FUS, PAR