Red Sonja

1985 "A woman and a warrior that became a legend."
5.1| 1h29m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 03 July 1985 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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The tyrant Gedren seeks the total power in a world of barbarism. She raids the city Hablac and kills the keeper of a talisman that gives her great power. Red Sonja, sister of the keeper, sets out with her magic sword to overthrow Gedren.

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Director

Richard Fleischer

Production Companies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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Red Sonja Audience Reviews

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks
Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Eddie Cantillo Red Sonja (1985) Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brigitte Nielsen, Sandahl Bergman, Paul L. Smith, Ernie Reyes, Jr., Ronald Lacey, Pat Roach, Terry Richards, Ronald Lacey, Donna Osterbuhr, Lara Lamberti, Hans Meyer, Francesca Romana Coluzzi, Stefano Maria Mioni, Tutte Lemkow, Kiyoshi Yamasaki, and Tad Horino Directed By: Richard Fleischer Review A woman and a warrior that became a legend. Apparently Arnold uses this to punish his children, I can see why. I was dreading what I was in for when I heard about that and having just finished it I'm going to read a Red Sonja graphic novel that shows this character at her best because if anything this is her weakest. Red Sonja is a film based on Robert E. Howard character about a woman who is left for dead after her whole family is butchered and she is violated. It is because of this she does not trust men. But when her sister is killed and the talisman is stolen by Queen Gerden who intends to use the talismans power to rule the world. Red Sonja accompanied by two men and a boy must destroy the talisman and defeat Gerden. The film only has two redeeming qualities, the first being is how short it is and the other being all the cool sword fights in it. All the good things about the movie end there. The acting is some of the worst I have ever seen even from Arnold an actor who can be very good. Brigitte Nielson is a beautiful woman and with a better script could maybe make a good Sonja and the kid can be quite annoying but surprisingly didn't bother me that much. The acting still sucked. It didn't work in the actors favor that the dialogue was just the worst. The camera shots from the director are not that good either if anything most of it is standard but then there's one scene where Sonja and Kalidor are sitting by a tree and I felt that the camera was shaking a little. Red Sonja is a film that comes together as a poor attempt to give a great female sword and sorcery character her own series, I could enjoy this as a guilty pleasure movie but there were too many problems for me to ignore, it's not as bad as I was expecting and is leap and bounds better than Supergirl which is another female lead movie that tried to capitalize on her male counterpart but that's not much, I'm giving Red Sonja a 4 out of 10.
Eric Stevenson I think this movie would have worked as a very short film, because there's certainly nothing that would fill out an entire movie. This film features a woman known as Red Sonja trying to get rid of an evil talisman that an evil queen has stolen. That's it for the plot and it's really stunning how needlessly padded this film is. I mean, there's so little going on and everything is drawn out. There's this really obnoxious kid known as the Prince of Tard in the movie too. In fact, most of these characters are annoying. There's this one scene where Arnold fights a fish robot or something.I swear this scene goes on for like ten minutes and it's so monotonous. I'm actually giving credit to "Conan The Destroyer". This happened to be based on another one of Robert Howard's works. Arnold and the main girl fall in love, like completely out of nowhere. I mean, that's cheesy even by bad movie standards. There's so many scenes of characters just playing around and doing nothing. The villain has no backstory or anything. The effects in this movie are so laughable, particularly with how they show teleporting by using cheesy jump cuts. Arnold even himself joked about how bad this movie was. *1/2
connorbbalboa In 1985, discussions were being made regarding the making of a third Conan the Barbarian film, Conan the Conqueror. What we got instead was a spin-off movie with Conan's female counterpart, Red Sonja, and Arnold Schwarzenegger came back to play another character, Lord Kalidor, as the producers were unable to get the rights to Conan. What was meant to be a cameo turned out to be a major part, and what could have been at least a moderately exciting diversion became the worst film to be set in the Hyborian world.The films begins with Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen), whose family has been murdered and who has been raped by the soldiers of an evil queen (Sandahl Bergman), is given powers by a fairy who is never referred to again. Later, Lord Kalidor (Schwarzenegger) is on his way to a ceremony to destroy a device called the Talisman, when he discovers Sonja's sister mortally wounded. He takes her to Sonja, who decides to undergo a quest to destroy the Talisman herself, and eventually get revenge on the evil queen who wronged her.Let me start by saying that you could not get a worse actress to play Sonja than Brigitte Nielsen. This was her first film, and she was a mere 21 years old. When she speaks most of the time, she looks like she is trying to show off, and not play a character. In fact, pretty much all the actors pull of sub-par performances, even Schwarzenegger, who at times looks unexcited to be in the film. However, when his performance is at his best, he is the only actor who is watchable.Character is another problem. Sonja basically has the same backstory as Conan in his initial outing (except Conan was never raped by Thulsa Doom or his men), so it comes off as a repeat of what came before (I've never read the original stories with Sonja). Her whole arc is practically learning to accept having a man to be her lover because she needs one to be happy. Dear Lord. Bergman's evil queen wants to rule the world with the Talisman, but it's also established from the beginning that she has a special interest in Sonja that is never explained. Kalidor may as well be Conan and he develops a love for Sonja that is established improperly. To slightly diverge, Nielsen and Schwarzenegger actually flirted on-set and she fell in love with him. Schwarzenegger rejected her, but directed her to Sylvester Stallone, who became her husband for a couple of years, and her co-star in films like Rocky 4 and Cobra. There is also a little kid prince and his fat, adult servant, who serve no purpose other than comic relief. The kid is incredibly annoying and makes you wish that somebody would just kill him already, since he seems to have many enemies.Another problem is the lack of threat and tension. The queen is aware of Sonja's quest, but seems to only rely on the Talisman to create bad weather; she doesn't even send any men out to try to stop Sonja midway. There is also a serpent made of metal, but it is easy to defeat, and the most it does is take Kalidor for a ride. At times when Sonja is killing a couple of the minor villains in the film, it looks like they are giving up and lowering their defenses on purpose, because if they kept trying, the film would go on longer and it is required in the script that they die (one of the villains also has awful Fu-Manchu claws). Additionally, the special effects and matte paintings look pretty obvious, the fighting choreography is average, and the score by Ennio Morricone, while not bad, sounds more suited to one of the Spaghetti Westerns he worked on.Red Sonja is a waste of film and not something that anyone should be forced to watch. When comparing the two Conan films, the first is a fantasy masterpiece with a great director at the helm (John Milius), an awesome score, great action, a menacing villain in James Earl Jones's Thulsa Doom, and an endearing theme about the human spirit. The sequel, Conan the Destroyer, plays off like an average, kid- friendly B- movie version of the first with a less interesting quest, awkward monster fights, and one or two unnecessary side characters, but it still entertains to an extent and some actually enjoy it more than the original for having more fantasy elements. This film has no reason to exist and is even considered a waste of time by Schwarzenegger himself. He makes the film a little watchable, but that's it. Fun fact: Schwarzenegger has joked that when his kids misbehaved, he would make them watch Red Sonja ten times. Now that's effective punishment right there. Who needs grounding?
Kirpianuscus a B movie, far by surprise, using old recipes of mixture fairy tale - science fiction and few Extreme Orient pieces in a chaotic story . nothing new, nothing memorable. maybe strange because the meeting of Brigitte Nielsen, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ennio Moriccone is almost eccentric. it is not fair to define it as bad movie. its target is clear - the fans of comics, and the virtue is exactly the respect for this literature.the story is only a sketch, the fight scenes not the best, the atmosphere amusing. so, only piece from a bizarre genre , heroic using old clichés, full of good intentions but far to be more than source of obscure references. and the dialogues are the first proof. the good point - maybe the nice mixture of similarities with the Conan the Barbarian. and few drops of eroticism or Arnold Schwarzenegger as savior of film.