The film examines Barbarella's very sexual experience as she is tasked with finding and stopping evil. Now, it appears that Durand-Durand, which could signal its positive beam, if not recovered, can turn things upside down.
"Barbarella" is the 1968 sci-fi that made Jane Fonda a household name. The opening credits feature a striptease that takes Fonda from a cumbersome space suit to her birthday suit. Her sex kitten looks were enough to drive young men crazy.
...like a lot of truly terrible things from the '60s, Barbarella has acquired the patina of the cult classic, which means that as the cultural context has changed we are able to enjoy it for reasons other than those intended by the filmmakers
Throughout the movie, there is the assumption that just mentioning a thing (sex, politics, religion) makes it funny and that mentioning it in some offensive context makes it funnier.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
June 10, 2004
It's fun in a 'What were they smoking?' kind of way.
A Flash Gordon-meets-Oz kitsch-fest stripping women's sexual revolution down to voyeuristic spectacle, flimsily dressed in cheap, see-through, psychedelic B-movie garb. Vadim imbues most scenes with a faux-arty lethargy that slumps into stiltedness.
