balsarius This one screams girl power in the age when a 2000's idiot critic may suggest it didn't exist. The truth is, for every guy flick you had a girl flick for the second date back in the 80's, because American cinema was about the creation of heterosexual couplings, not dividing or replacing them with candied men cowering before their women, or same sex unions.Of course, then the Madonna fans graduated from cinema schools.Girl power, from the virgin amazons guarding the talisman at the start, to the evil queen of supreme power who comes to claim it for use in what any woman in power generally would.Red Sonya, was so hot and so badass at the same time it made you proud to be light hued and ginger haired. Boy or girl, this movie had it all, and was a great empowerment film.Like "Legend", in that it brought boys and girls along for the ride and left both respecting the role of the other.The novelty characters and bad special effects are on a par with, Deathstalker, but the swordplay is very good for the time.A must watch for S&S fans.

bensonmum2 The plot of this movie is almost identical to the plot in any number of other sword and sorcerer movies that came out in the 80s. Other than the fact that the title character, Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen), is a woman, there's not much else in the way of originality. Red Sonja's sister is killed by an evil queen (Sandahi Bergman) intent on getting her hands on a powerful orb. Red Sonja vows revenge and goes after the queen. Along the way, she gathers a ragtag band to assist her, including Cona . . . er, I mean Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger). They'll have lots of adventures and battles along the way – leading to a final showdown between Sonja and the queen.Despite what a lot of people around the internet would lead you to believe, Red Sonja isn't horrible – well, not horrible when you compare it with a lot of the other Conan wannabes that came out in the early 80s. In fact, parts of the films are a lot of fun. There are some pretty decent fight scenes (the best being the sparring matches between Nielsen and Schwarzenegger), at least one interesting creature, and a couple of cool looking sets. I really enjoyed seeing Sandahi Bergman in the role of the queen. Here, she seems to be having a blast. Her final showdown with Nielsen is actually quite good and really gives the film a nice ending.Of all the problems you could list when discussing Red Sonja, the most obvious is the poor acting. My understanding is that prior to taking the role of Red Sonja, Brigitte Nielsen was a magazine model with no acting experience. This was her first role. Schwarzenegger has never been known as a thespian. He's fun to watch, but he's always been limited. Finally, Ernie Reyes Jr wasn't really an actor either. Here, he's just annoying. It says a lot about the quality of the cast when I can say in all honesty that Sandahi Bergman is the best actor in the film.Finally, one thing about Red Sonja I find hysterical is her repeated insistence that she needs no help - especially from a man. Yet at every tun, Cona . . . I mean Kalidor is there to save her butt. She'd have been dead half way through the film if it weren't for him.

BA_Harrison Arnold the Barbarian meets his match in the shapely form of statuesque Brigitte Nielsen as Red Mullet, who rivals The Austrian Oak's ability with a blade while proving herself equally as inept as the musclebound star at delivering her lines. With these woefully wooden performers sharing much of the screen-time, working from a pitiful script that is heavy on the cheeze, Red Sonja is unintentionally camp, mid-80s sword and sorcery adventure that proves far more amusing than thrilling.In the film's horribly trite opening scene, young Sonja rejects the sexual advances of evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman), slashing the wicked ruler's face as she struggles to escape; as a result, the queen orders her guards to kill Sonja's family and gang rape the insolent young woman. Years later, having learnt fighting skills from an old master, Sonja is given the opportunity to settle the score when she embarks on a quest to recover a powerful talisman that has been stolen by the despotic Queen Gedren. Together with man mountain Kalidor (Arnie), irritating Prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes Jr.) and his willing slave Falkon (Paul L. Smith), Sonja travels to the queen's fortress to destroy the talisman and put an end to Gedren's tyranny.Despite fairly decent production values—the film boasts impressive sets and costumery, reasonable effects (including some lovely matte paintings), spectacular cinematography, a rousing score from Ennio Morricone, and some well choreographed swordplay—Red Sonja is a rather embarrassing addition to the barbarian genre as a whole. The flat direction from Richard Fleischer renders the action scenes ineffective, the acting is diabolical, the storyline and dialogue utterly asinine, and the film's uneven tone makes it hard to figure out who the intended audience was: much of the movie seems light-hearted and rather juvenile at times, but the severed limbs and gouts of blood make it unsuitable viewing for children.Of course, quite a few giggles can be had from the film's shoddier elements, which include a glowing wood spirit that inexplicably bestows special powers on Sonja (although just what these powers are is never really clear), Arnie riding a mechanical water dragon, Queen Gedren's giant vibrating pet spider, and a shonky steam-driven video screen that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serial from the 30s.

david-sarkies This movie is advertised as an Arnold Swartzenegger movie but he really only plays a supporting character to the role of Sonja (Bridgette Neilson). The story of this movie is quiet good, carrying lots of fantasy elements in it like guardian beasts, huge spiders, wicked queens, and a powerful artifact that can destroy the world. Unfortunately the acting is really bad. One may think that the actors in this movie, even the famous Arnie, never went to acting school. This is surprising because Neilson was much better in Beverly Hills Cop II. But in this movie most of the lines were poorly delivered and the script was incredibly corny.The plot is a typical fantasy plot. A powerful artifact is to be destroyed but the wicked queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergmen) comes along with her powerful army and kills all of the priestesses and steals the talisman. The thing about the talisman is that only a woman can touch it so Gedren is very happy. She then takes the Talisman to he castle and begins her plan to conquer the world. Sonja, who has come afoul of Gedren before, learns of the attack in which her sister is killed and storms off after Gedren.This movie seems to be an anti-feminist movie. Women have the power in this movie, in regards to the talisman, and play a prominent part. Sonja hates men and believes that she can get along with out having to rely upon any man. Yet Prince Kalidor (Arnold Swartzenegger) always appears and fights for her when it seems that she is almost defeated. This movie seems to try to say that women and men need to work together and they cannot write each other out. There is also the idea, as symbolised by Kalidor and Sonja being swordspeople of equal ability, that there is no difference between men and women and that they are equals.It is a shame that most fantasy movies only come out as half-hearted attempts at some entertainment. There is truly very few good fantasy movies on the shelves of the video store. Fantasy is more of an uncliched genre as it has not really been explored as much as it could be. So far it has remained the realm of the novel but there is much room for it to move to the big screen.