Red Sonja | | Cast : | Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brigitte Nielsen, Sandahl Bergman | | Director : | Richard Fleischer | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | July 03, 1985 | | DVD Released Date : | September 14, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | March 31, 2005 | | Summary | Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger with big swords | Content
 | Director Richard Fleischer derailed the Conan movie franchise by making the 1984 "Conan the Destroyer" much more of a campy adventure than John Milius did with the original 1982 "Conan the Barbarian." However, for this 1985 Conan spin-off of a Robert E. Howard inspired creation, the warrior-woman Red Sonja. In the title role is the statuesque model Brigitte Nielsen, making her film debut, with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Kalidor, the Conan-clone who plays a pivotal supporting role in that he usually only shows up to save the film's heroine. However, given the idea that Red Sonja has been given her warrior strength to avenge the murder of her family and her own violent rape, the idea that a man has to keep bailing her own clearly runs against the character's ideology (and you just cannot ignore that sort of thing when the title character has been empowered by the gods as long as she keeps true to her vows and avoids sex).
Arnold is a more engaging character this time around, which is rather easy since nobody is as sullen as Conan, and this is the first time where you really get a sense of fun in one of his movies (his serious resume at that point was the two Conan films and the first "Terminator"). The problem is that by the time he first shows up the best part of the movie is over, and for every decent moment provided by Arnold there are three or four scenes with Ernie Reyes, Jr. as the annoying Prince Tarn, reducing the movie to something like "Home Alone" with swords. The plot for "Red Sonja" involves a quest for a giant green orb and an evil queen (Sandhal Bergman), which makes it a lot like "Conan the Destroyer." Indeed, the worst thing I can say about this sword and sorcery effort is that it made me like the Conan sequel a whole lot better, which is not whatt I was hoping for at all.
One of the reasons we are surprised by how bad of a film we are watching is that the crew includes cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and art director Danilo Donati, who usually worked with Federico Fellini, and the music is by Ennio Morricone, who did all of the epic scores for Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. I know that neither one of those two celebrated directors would have touched this project, but one of their assistant directors could have turned in a more competent performance that Fleischer. "Conan the Barbarian" remains the best Sword & Sorcery film to date, and with his two entries Fleischer gets the lion share of credit for sending the whole genre right done the tubes. Milius is planning a King Conan movie for 2005, so there is hope, but those faintly flickering flames have gotten really small in the last twenty years. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 14, 2005 | | Summary | wonderful campy fun! | Content
| Don't even try to take this movie seriously. Just kick back and enjoy it for what it is: campy fun. It's all just silly escapism that can be highly enjoyable with some popcorn and a beverage, but hell there's nothing wrong with that! |
| Rating | | | Date | February 08, 2005 | | Summary | Son-ee-yaahhh! | Content
| People left the cinema during this one... and rightly so, the special effects for a 1980s fantasy swashbuckler where like something out of a 1950s Flash Gordon episode. As soon as Arnaughlt starts tossing the fake metal sea serpent about himself like Bella Lugosi in Ed Wood, you know that the film is lost.
Although the ending is not half-bad, films like Krull, Beastmaster and Conan at least have a budget for the set design. In Red Son--ee-yaahhh, the sets are made out of tin-foil, and it even looks like tin-foil! Imagine the old RANK logo with the gold gong. Imagine that stuff everywhere... pretending to be metal... but just paper blowing in the breeze. Somebody maybe conjured miracles on a $100 design budget, but to be honest it just looks like someone forgot to fire the production designer. Even Arnauhglt wears this totally g@y headband.
The story goes something along the lines of a green glowing gem that only women can use has been snatched by a wicked woman who takes it to her castle to rule the universe. Red Son-ee-yaahhh, played by Neilson, turns up to quest for the gem, meets Arnaughlt who says a few lines under a heavy accent, mainly just there for showing off his abs, meet up with a really annoying kid from china who can do kung-foo (yeah I think you get the picture).
The film throws only one half-good sword fight near the end with some prequel fights that never really leave the ground. The bad special effects made us laugh out loud in 1985 and then sneek into the other screen. You can only imagine what it looks like 2005.
This is quite possibly Arnaughlts worst film in his collection. Certainly forget he was ever in this and go get the two Conan movies instead. Why bother with this? To be honest it feels like the producers are just trying to make a quick buck on a fem-conan spin-off... which is not such a bad idea... and neither is Neilson... but the whole production is like your six year old made it in class. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 05, 2005 | | Summary | Campy Sword and Sorcery | Content
| Though Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Kalidor in this movie rather than Conan, I always think of this movie as the third Conan movie. Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman, who played Valeria in "Conan the Barbarian") takes an orb from a sort of temple of all women who plan to lock it away forever, coincidentally at the same time that Queen Gedren has come to steal it. The orb has the power to destroy, and if left in the light too long it has the power to destroy the Earth. We are introduced Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) whose sister was one of the women in the temple and who has taken on the task of retrieving the orb before it can be used to destroy the Earth. Naturally this quest is also Kalidor's, so though the two take separate paths, they all eventually end up in the same place.
Along the way to Gedren's kingdom we encounter Prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes, Jr., "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II" and "Surf Ninjas) and his bodyguard and servant Falkon (Paul L. Smith). Unfortunately, these two characters are the comic relief and while there are a few moments where they are at least humorous, it only takes a while for them to become tedious.
The foursome travel to Queen Gedren's kingdom, all the while she continues to make the glowing orb more and more powerful. She is also aware that Red Sonja and her party are on the way, and tries to prevent them from reaching her kingdom. One of her attempts involves a giant wind-up toy that makes funny noises and swims in circles, often towing one or more characters from the movie. Naturally Prince Tarn was part of the reason they encountered the beastie, and no matter how many times I tell him to go back, get out of the water, it just never seems to happen.
Ultimately the crew reaches Queen Gedren, there is the obligatory big fight, and things mostly resolve themselves as you would probably expect.
There are several remarkable and not-so-remarkable scenes in this movie. In one of the better scenes the party travels across the backbone of some sort of ancient monster. When Arnold encounters Red Sonja she is completing some sort of test to prove that she is ready to graduate from the "Funky Japanese Guy with Stuff Coming out of His Shoulders School of Mystical Sword Work." The arena in which she is fighting is cool, but for some reason they put a guy squatting over the entrance that looks to me like someone attempting to perform a bodily function, and I laugh every time I watch it. The temple of warrior women at the beginning of the movie where the orb is located is also well done, both the interiors and exteriors. I also thought Queen Gedren had a reasonably well-done castle.
This movie has good points and awful points. The fighting is generally well-done throughout, but there are the usual stupid points. For example, the warrior women are surrounding the glowing orb, which they plan to lock in the dark forever. It would seem to the average warrior that a lookout would be advisable. Second, once the locking procedure started, followed by the attack, all one of the priestess-warriors had to do was kick the key into the same deep pit the orb was going to go into, and the orb would have been closed up while the fighting was going on. Of course, that would have ended the movie and what fun would that have been.
Another problem is that Queen Gedren had this orb with all kinds of power, along with a castle filled with soldiers, and yet she allowed Red Sonja to live, with more than a hint of Gedren's sexual orientation. Given her megalomaniacal tendencies, you would have thought that Gedren would have summarily disposed of the group. It just seems like you can't predict the behavior of psychopaths in movies (ever notice that?).
Arnold movies usually introduce humor to keep the movie from being too serious, but this time some the humor was ill-timed and often ill planned. Ernie Reyes, Jr. plays a comedic character, and detracts too much from the plot line. Similarly, Paul Smith as Falkon was often for comedic effect, and it was too much like watching Laurel and Hardy do Conan rather than a typical Arnold movie.
This movie ends up being a movie of contrasts. The movie begins with an excellent premise. Portions of the movie are fun to watch. However, the campy portions drag down the good portions, and all of the potential of the movie is squandered in silliness. Arnold Schwarzenegger was an excellent Conan, and this movie could easily have been a third Conan movie, particularly given that the two Conan movies were much better done than this movie. I will recommend that you watch this movie, but do so as a rental rather than a purchase; you'll be happy you did.
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| Rating | | | Date | January 17, 2005 | | Summary | Conan III ... well not really | Content
| Apparently the producers originally were going to have Arnold portray Conan again but decided against it as they thought people would get the impression that he would be the main character and be disappointed with the film. Boy were they wrong! Even changing his name to Kalidor couldn't save the audiences from being disappointed. The producers first major fault was hiring director Richard Fleischer to direct as he graced us with the ultimatly disappointing Conan the Destroyer. He actually manages to make a worse movie with Red Sonja. The second major fault was hiring actress Brigitte Nielsen. Yes she had the build for a warrior women, but she was, and is, a terrible actress. I still enjoyed some of the picture in a B-movie way, but overall this was sorely disappointing even compared to Conan the Destroyer. |
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