Top Secret! (1984)

I thought I'd already watched the greatest of the comedy crazy eighties, with movies like Return of the Killer Tomatoes and Police Academy, and shows like Sledgehammer!, but this was on a different level entirely.

The style of comedy's the same, but the play on perspectives, and attention to detail makes it something else. It's a spy movie parody farce in which an American rock and roll singer becomes involved in a Resistance plot to rescue a scientist imprisoned in East Germany, and though the story may sound cliche, they play with that cliche in the best ways.

There's always something to look or laugh at, and the play on perspectives is a real highlight. The boots. The phone. The backwards scene. If you see the movie you'll probably have many a memorable moment to add. It's creative, crazy and cheesy in all the right ways, with so many inventive filming techniques some of their ingenuity is sure to pass you by, and merit another watch in a year or two or... next week.

It's also Val Kilmer's debut movie - as lead role no less, and with good help from Lucy Gutteridge, Michael Gough, Warren Clarke, Jim Carter and others - he killed it. And by that I mean he was great (such a contradictory idiom).

The dance scenes are as flashy as the action, and the final fight in the underwater bar (how's that for deep symbolism?) is as good as it gets. Comedy like this just isn't made nowadays. I miss the golden age, and I'm happy I'd missed this movie... until now! It's a new favorite.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome