It should be a crime to waste a great idea. The concept behind this low-budget actioner – in 1945, a band of Nazi officers fled Germany to build a base on the moon – should have made for OTT bad-taste thrills. In the hands of a director who understands satire it could have been fun. But overseen by a bunch of Finnish fanboys whose first feature was unfunny sci-fi flick Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, it becomes a crude slapstick romp.

When the new US president dispatches astronauts to the dark side of the moon, they’re astonished to discover a swastika-shaped mining colony. These ‘Mondnazis’, led by Fuhrer Wolfgang Kortzfleisch (Udo Kier), are putting the finishing touches to a 60-year project: to launch the Battleship Götterdämmerung and retake planet Earth.

The problem is the script, which feels at best like an irritatingly self-aware B-movie pastiche. The kind of satire at work here – essentially, comparing the might of America to that of the Third Reich – is best when underplayed. Instead, Iron Sky trades in crass slapstick, proving that even the silliest idea needs a smart mind behind it.