Ciao, mia sorellas!
Because you guys are all lazy, I decided to write another one, this time about Red Sonja, a.k.a. I wish this was Conan 3.
Red Sonja (1985) - Movie Review by Khorin (includes spoilers)
Plot:This movie tells the story of Red Sonja(Brigitte Nielsen). In the opening scene Red Sonja is visited by a spirit that gives her the power to defeat the evil Queen Gedren(Sandahl Bergman) who killed Red Sonja's family and was also raped by the queen's soldiers. So far so good on the barbarian hero cliché. Family of the protagonist is killed and now she's out for revenge.
After this the opening credits start to roll showing a man called Kalidor(Arnold Schwarzenegger) riding over open steppes to the music that you should already be listening to, already you get the distinct feeling that he is Conan.
The plot revolves around a magical object called the Talisman that has immense magical powers, and in the first few scenes Queen Gedren steals it from a temple and kills Sonja's only living family member, her sister. Kalidor who was riding toward the temple to witness the destruction of the Talisman instead finds Sonja's sister dying. Kalidor promises to find Sonja and bring her to her sister. She is found in an "asian" martial arts school practicing sword fighting and here we learn of her inherent dislike of men. Sonja promises to destroy the Talisman and avenge her sister, but refuses Kalidor's assistance on her mission and rides off on her own. Without her knowing, Kalidor follows her.
In the next part we are introduced to two people in a ruined city. These two people are Prince Tarn(Ernie Reyes Jr.), who is around 7 years old, and Falkon(Paul L. Smith), his manservant. The city was under Tarn's rule before Queen Gedren passed by with the Talisman and destroyed it. These tell Red Sonja that Gedren's kingdom of eternal night lies beyond a toll gate controlled by a man called Brytag.
When she reaches the toll gate, Brytag(Pat Roach) refuses passage, so she kills him and just when Sonja is about to be overrun by Brytag's soldiers Kalidor shows up and saves the day. They open the gate and Sonja rides off alone while Kalidor stays to kill all the soldiers. In the next scene by some magic we meet Tarn and Falkon again who have been kidnapped by bandits. Red Sonja saves the pair and they decide to go and kill Gedren together.
Gedren who can see their approach from far away using a magical mirror sends a storm at them which drives them into a cave. In the cave they are attacked by a mechanical snake monster, and just in the right moment Kalidor shows up again and together with Red Sonja kills the monster. By now Red Sonja is starting to warm up to Con... I mean Kalidor, and she tells him that he will only have sex with a man strong enough to beat her in combat. So they fight until both are too tired and continue their journey toward the evil castle.
Once there they climb up the walls of the castle. Kalidor goes first and helps Red Sonja climb and then they enter the compound through some tunnel that's on the top. Right when they get out of the tunnel, Red Sonja is almost killed, but luckily Kalidor comes out of the tunnel in the right moment to kill the bad guy. After this, they all fight a bunch of badguys and kill Gedren and destroy the Talisman which causes the castle to start to collapse.
During the escape Conan uses his muscles three times to create an opening through which they can escape. The entire movie ends with Red Sonja and Kalidor kissing.
Visuals:On the costume department everything looks pretty good. Classic 80s barbarian movie style, but they don't look cheap. Just an aesthetic one has to get used to. The fighting is also serviceable, though mainly relies on Arnold being Arnold.
The sets are also good enough, apart from the final sets inside the castle. The lighting seems way off, you only see torches and you'd expect a slightly glomy castle, but it's all too bright inside. The lights look like they're lit up by spotlights.
The snake monster looks alright at first, until you realize it's made of metal and the scene drags on way too long allowing you to see all its faults. Gedren's pet spider looks ridiculous. You can see it hanging from the ceiling.
Audio:There's not much to say in the audio department. The above video in the first half plays the opening title music which is classic old-school adventure style music. The rest of it, is extremely forgettable. A lot of the scenes also lacked music. The entirely too long snake monster scene lacked any music at all. This is probably due to the entire soundtrack being only 30 minutes long, while Conan's was double that.
Acting:Okay, so this is the worst part of the movie. It's terrible all over, but I'll only mention the 5 main characters.
Falkon and Prince Tarn are introduced as a comedic relief to the movie and it's executed horribly. Frankly, the movie would be made infinately better if the kid that plays Tarn would be removed. His performance of a young arrogant prince is awful awful awful.
Queen Gedren, i.e. Sandahl Bergman, who also played Valeria in Conan the Barbarian unfortunately does not play the evil queen part that well. At worst it regresses to a parody of an evil queen.
Red Sonja never convinces the viewer that she's this super badass fighter she's supposed to be, and just seems outshined by Arnold constantly. Nothing she says is believable. In fact, it's so bad that now that I watch the wikipedia page, she actually won a Razzie for Worst New Star and was nominated for Worst Actor.
Arnold plays Conan and does so alright. Not as convincing as Conan the Barbarian, but that is primarily due to the dialogue. All in all, the acting in this movie is lacking.
Dialogue:It's bad, alright. And delivered worse for the most part.
Here's some examples:
Brytag: I will tell the future in your entrails, Red Woman!
Red Sonja: I know my future. You have none.
Red Sonja: No man may have me, unless he's beaten me in a fair fight.
Kalidor: So, the only man that can have you, is one who's trying to kill you. That's logic.
[Red Sonja goes and lies down. Kalidor picks up his sword and holds it to her throat]
Kalidor: If you yield only to a conqueror, then prepared to be conquered... Little Sonja...
Red Sonja: Don't be a fool, I don't want to kill you.
Kalidor: Try it.
Prince Tarn: Boy? BOY?!?!?
This movie is really strange. It has everything needed for a Conan movie, but it insists on having Red Sonja as the main character even though she's constantly outperformed by Kalidor. There are
two situations in the movie where Red Sonja saves the day. When she rescues the two kidnapped idiots and when she kills Gedren. There are
five situations where Kalidor saves Red Sonja. It's like they wanted to make a Conan movie, but couldn't, so they made a movie about a strong woman instead without removing Conan. I feel a bit sorry for how Red Sonja is treated.
If you need any more convincing of this, just look at the cover:
That said, it's an 80s campy barbarian movie, and I have to say, they're kinda my weak spot. It's bad, yes, but it's funny bad in some ways and bad bad in other ways. However, if you've already seen all the Conan's, unfortunately, Red Sonja is the best you'll find. Along with the new Conan remake that's being made there's been quite a bit of murmuring about a new Red Sonja movie being made. It was initially cancelled, but now it seems to have resurfaced. So maybe in the future we'll get to see some of this.
Thanks for reading gentlemen. Maybe in a few months I'll write another barbarian movie review. There's so many to choose from. I've seen Seven Gladiators, Hundra, Amazons, all Ator movies and all Deathstalker's and seeing how these movies are difficult to get a hold of, I might do one of these. But if I watch something new, I'll probably do a write up of that.
Don't expect anything good though, they only go downhill from here. I've seen things.... And I haven't even seen the bottom.
Though I have seen plenty of bottoms. Some of these are practically softporn.
