Believe it or Not, This is a Marvel Movie: Red Sonja (1985)

I've actually been told not to watch Red Sonja, but I did anyways. How could I not want to watch this movie? Other than the fact that it was made in the 80s and it is sure to have dated effects, it's Arnie in another Conan-lite movie! I figured there was no time like the present and I threw it on. For those curious about the title I gave this, Red Sonja is actually a Marvel comics character about a skimpily armour clad warrior woman who lives in a lost prehistoric land. I doubted I'd see any dinosaurs during the course of the film, but I hoped there would be some fantasy elements to be found. Check out my findings right after the jump.


Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) is the sole survivor of her family. Her beauty made the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman) want her for her own, but when Sonja refused, the Queen had her family burned. After the tragedy, a mysterious apparition appears before Sonja, and grants her with immense strength so that one day she can defeat Gedren and have her revenge. Years later and after Sonja has mastered her fighting techniques, Gedren attacks a temple, stealing a powerful talisman that could destroy the world. It's up to Sonja and the friends she's meets along the way to find Gedren and the talisman, and destroy both.

Brigitte Nielson as the powerful Red Sonja

Alright, so now you know what the story is about, and now I'm going to tell you that this is a terrible movie! The biggest offense is the wooden acting from nearly every single character on screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays Kalidor, seems to do a good job, but it's also pretty much exactly like all his other performances, so maybe I'm just used to his way of acting. Actually, some of the side characters do a far better job than the main characters. Gedren's right hand man, for example, is actually pretty decent, especially when he's constantly in the presence of Sendahl Bergman. Bergman gives possibly the worst performance in the whole film, even worse than the annoying child prince. Interesting side note: Prince Tarn is played by a young Ernie Reyes Jr, who I'm sure many will know better as Keno from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze.

Aright Arnie! Please come save this movie!

I had hoped that there would be some elements of fantasy in the movie, and while the magic talisman that can summon storms is an alright example, I was really hoping more for creatures. I always like it when movies show giant skeletons of monsters laying around, even if we never seen the creatures themselves. Pitch Black and even Star Wars do this, and Red Sonja is another one to add to the list. When our heroes need to cross into Gedren's territory, a land that never has sunlight, there is a giant chasm with a river of lava. The only way across is by walking across the giant skeleton of a fallen monster. It was very nice of that monster to die in such a convenient location!

Sweet! A bridge made of a fallen monster!

Something I noticed was that the few scenes of fantastical moments like this are lingered on for far too long. They show that skeleton for ages as Sonja slowly walks back and forth on it to "test it out" for all the horses they'll be bringing. Another scene has the party trapped in a pit of water as a machine monster swims around trying to kill them. This scene, while at first was kinda fun in a cheesy 80s way, continued on for far too long. And then Arnie shows up! Now he tries to fight it and we have to go even longer. It just felt like they had spent so much money making this big thing that swooshed and rolled around in the water that they wanted to make sure they got their money's worth out of it. It just wore out its welcome.

The deadly machine water beast... that never kills anyone! They should get their money back.

Red Sonja is filled with things that could work if they had been done properly. There are plenty of scenes that I could see as being fun if they hadn't stretched them out for so long that they became boring. Then there's the issue of the film not knowing if Sonja or Arnie is the main character. Nearly ignoring Arnie's Kalidor for the first half, he is suddenly focused on much more in the last half. I liked that their party consisted of different types of people, but they were all just terrible actors which ruins that. There are some fun sword fights and lots of guys get killed, Kalidor even chops a dude's arm off so suddenly that I shouted in shock. But then there is so much really bad swordplay at other times, like the dragged out fight between Kalidor and Red Sonja mid-movie.

For every plus, there's a minus, and sadly, all those pluses are tainted with the taste of 80s cheese. There's really no need to see this unless you're an Arnold Schwarzenegger purist and MUST see all of his movies. Red Sonja has all the qualities of a bad high school film. I recommend that you avoid it if you can.