Comic Book Movie Rewatch: Red Sonja

I’m still going through movies adapted from comic books, though I’m starting to run a little low on available titles. This post is about the 1985 movie Red Sonja.

Red Sonja

Source Comic: Red Sonja (Marvel Comics)

IMDb Rating: 5.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes critics: 15%

Rotten Tomatoes audience: 28%

My Rating: 2/10

My wife doesn’t understand it, but I really enjoy 1980s sword and sorcery movies. I know they’re pretty much all terrible, but that’s part of the reason I like them. Red Sonja, which was intended to be a Conan the Barbarian spin-off, is bad even by the standards of 1980s sword and sorcery movies. It’s so bad, in fact, that Schwarzenegger calls it his worst ever movie, and he cancelled a contract with the director because of the film.

The story follows Sonja’s quest for revenge on Queen Gedren after her family is murdered and she’s raped and left for dead by the queen’s soldiers. Gedren also attacks a temple and steals a powerful talisman. Sonja’s sister manages to escape and survives just long enough plead with Sonja to recover the talisman. This is all really standard sword and sorcery plot, and the movie doesn’t do anything new or different with the tropes.

One reason that I enjoy these types of movies is because the production values are so low, and yet the actors try so hard to make everything convincing. Red Sonja is no different. The costumes, visual effects, fight choreography, music, and so on are all terrible. It’s very clear they were thrown together on a tight budget and hoped for the best. What makes this movie stand out from all the others is that this one happens to have Arnold Schwarzenegger in a lead role, and he’s easily the best actor in the cast. It was also very clear that Arnold knew that the movie was going to be terrible, and he’s the only one who wasn’t trying really hard (think about that for a second… mid-80s Arnold was the BEST actor in the movie while giving a half-hearted effort).

The characters in the film are all pretty weak and one-dimensional. Schwarzenegger plays Kalidor (copyright issues prevented him from being Conan), and his entire role is to conveniently save Sonja when she needs it and provide a love interest. Queen Gedren has no motivation except for being evil… that’s really it. Then there are Prince Tarn and Falkon, who also serve no real purpose other than to give non-threatening men for Sonja to interact with. Lastly, Sonja’s character is a big problem in the movie She’s supposed to be the greatest sword fighter in the land, who hates all men. That’s how she’s described in the movie. How’s she portrayed is as a woman who is saved by men on a regular basis because she over-estimates her ability to fight her way out situations. She does end up with some growth through the movie, as she starts teaching Tam and develops a relationship with Kalidor, but her growth is so mundane and predictable that it doesn’t actually add much to the movie.

Red Sonja has a cult following, which is the case for many 80s sword and sorcery movies. What I think sets this one apart from all the others (in a bad way) is that the presence of a legitimate movie star. What makes this one worse than the others is that all Schwarzenegger’s presence does is highlight how bad everything else in the movie is. Had a no name actor been cast instead, then Red Sonja may have had even worse acting, but it also would have had more charm.