Red Sonja (1985) Brigitte Nielsen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandahl Bergman, Paul L. Smith Movie Review

Red Sonja (1985)   1/51/51/51/51/5


Brigitte Nielsen in Red Sonja (1985)

Red Alert

Having been attacked, raped and left for dead Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) seeks vengeance for all that has happened to her and blames the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman) for it all. When Gedren steals a powerful talisman from the keepers it is Red Sonja who sets out on a mission to retrieve it with Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) following her to protect her. Inevitable these two find themselves becoming close which in turn puts Red Sonja in danger as her power comes from vowing never to give herself to a man.

Admittedly I never got why others enjoyed "Conan the Barbarian" and as such I had a real sense of dread when I sat down to watch "Red Sonja" because some of those who were fans of the Conan movies even disliked this spin-off. And sadly I have to say I was right as I didn't think much of it with the juddering nature of the acting and the editing being just two of many things which I found painful about it. In almost every scene you can see Brigitte Nielsen over thinking her performance, trying too hard to deliver the dialogue in a certain way and giving it a seriously unnatural feel.

I will be honest "Red Sonja" bored me so much that to waste a lot of time coming up with the right words in a review feels like an even greater waste of time so I will cut to the chase and give you two reasons why you might enjoy it. There is action, heavily edited action at that, and then there is the look with that aspect of fetish when it comes to the costumes and as such if all you want is some sword wielding action featuring a woman in a leather looking outfit it might entertain. But even then the look often comes across as shaky as the acting.

What this all boils down to is that "Red Sonja" is an incredibly weak spin-off movie and one which whilst might hold some sort of appeal to those who were heavily into this type of fantasy sword and whatever adventure movies back in the 80s has little appeal outside of that niche.


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