Box office The film did not do well in the box office. In Finland, it had close to 32,000 viewers, less than one-fifth of the previous film. The box office for Germany, Poland and Turkey and by July 2019 was less than US$400,000.
Critical response Following its premiere on January 16, 2019, in Helsinki, Finland,
Iron Sky: The Coming Race attracted hostile reviews. Foreign reviews were generally negative as well.
Review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of , based on reviews. Juho Typpö of
Helsingin Sanomat called
Iron Sky: The Coming Race an ”awfully bad movie”, awarding it one star out of five. The comedy built upon ”crazy and ludicrous twists” fails to entertain or amuse, and the entire film ends up being ”but a big joke” that provides the audience no reason to care. The potential of once-topical themes (such as Sarah Palin and Steve Jobs) was lost due to the prolonged production, and even the budget of 20 million — an all-time record for a Finnish live-action movie — was seemingly wasted, resulting in confined set-pieces and
CGI of uneven quality. Jouni Vikman of
Episodi also gave the film one star, criticizing ”old jokes that would not have been funny even if they were new”. The special effect sequences, supposedly the main attraction, were too brief to his tastes and ”reminiscent of a cheap TV-series”. He was impressed by Lara Rossi, especially considering the fact that many scenes were filmed in front of the
green screen, whereas ”the veteran actors Udo Kier and Tom Green only manage to survive by ignoring their surroundings”. Jonni Aromaa from
Yle News called
Iron Sky: The Coming Race one of the worst films ever made, citing cardboard characters, subpar dialogue, unfunny humor, and low quality of the dinosaur effects. He was particularly critical of the screenplay: ”Why on earth was the script written by the American Dalan Musson, a friend of Vuorensola’s? Was it really so that no one else was available on this planet?” Other reviews were more positive. Tapani Peltonen from
V2 awarded
Iron Sky: The Coming Race two stars out of five, describing the film as a ”wild and free” alternative to the homogenous mass of calculated Hollywood productions, but remarked that many such alternative productions struggle with even the very basics of filmmaking, failing to flesh out captivating characters. Helinä Laajalahti from
Muropaketti gave the film three stars of out five and lauded it for its ambition. She, however, noted that ”the abundance of details and references embedded in the story threaten to turn against itself” and felt the film would have benefited from a more focused approach. Martta Kaukonen of
Me Naiset likewise awarded the film three stars and said it was as entertaining as the original
Iron Sky. She enjoyed the ”delicious” characterization and praised Kier's
dual role. Sophie Monks Kaufman of
The Guardian gave the film one out of five stars, calling it a ”scattershot, stakes-free, self-consciously wacky space comedy”. She criticized its unidimensional characters and superficial script, noting a tendency to introduce illogical elements with little relation to the rest of the plot, seemingly for the sake of sheer surrealness. Nonetheless, Kaufman praised Lara Rossi's committed performance ”as a grounding presence in a gravity-free spectacle”. Noel Murray of
Los Angeles Times called
The Coming Race a ”goofy science-fiction picture”. He noted that the film repeatedly alludes to
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and other provocative themes, but — not unlike its predecessor — remains unable to provide actual
satire. Murray described
The Coming Race ”frustratingly unfocused” both as a story and as a commentary of the modern era. Just the same, he found the hollow Earth sequence ”suitably wacky”. Joey Magidson of
Hollywood News noted the potentially entertaining premise, but concluded that the film was ”largely a bore and a mess”. He awarded the film 1.5 stars out of 4. == Planned sequel, bankruptcy ==