Superhero Media: Kung Fury

For a little while, people have been telling me to check out Kung Fury, a tounge-in-cheek Sci-Fi/Action/Martial Arts/Fantasy film that has all the gloss of a bad, straight-to-video 1980s z-grade indy film. When I got Netflix, Kung Fury came up as a suggestion pretty quick, so, on a quiet night, I checked it out. For those who don't know, Kung Fury started out as a fake trailer, just a joke, really, but it was crowdfunded into a half-hour romp. Much as the content of Kung Fury is intended to titillate, with elements such as Triceracop, Kung-Fuehrer and viking babes on dinosaurs, I found I was left cold by its charm more often than not. Overall, Kung Fury reminded me most of Axe Cop, frantic and silly, but in a juvenile way. 

Aside from Axe Cop, the comic that I'd be most inclined to compare Kung Fury to is Next Wave: Agents of H.A.T.E.; a "pirate superhero fight comic" about five z-list heroes saving America from bizarre weapons of mass destruction. I freaking love Next Wave. As well as being balls-out crazy, the characters are well-rounded and there are many clever and quotable sections. In contrast, most of the jokes in Kung-Fury are in the characters themselves; "Hackerman" is a 1980s computer hacker, that is his entire character. One may argue that in under 30 minutes, there is little development of character to be had, but there are a plethora of indy films to counter that point. Should I be that mad? Clearly, Kung Fury is intended to be dumb from the outset, but I guess I was hoping for more under the surface, like in Rick and Morty or The Venture Bros. 
 

Although I didn't really enjoy Kung-Fury, I can't honestly tell people to avoid it. I think a lot of people will get the intended kick out of it that I didn't, and hey, it's a half-hour of your life. The final battle in the Nazi compound may be of some inspiration for supers games and dinosaur men are always worth the time in my book.