Red Sonja (1985)
Red Sonja is like Conan the Barbarian, but with an angry red-headed woman instead of an angry gym bro. However, in the same way that He-Man had to keep popping up in episodes of She-Ra to help her out, Arnie Schwarzenegger keeps popping up in Red Sonja to help her out too. Only this time around, he's called Kalidor. I'm sure they're a company that make garage doors.
So, the plot. Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) has red hair so is known as Red Sonja. I've got black hair so maybe I should be called Black Ja-, no, never mind. Sonja is also very angry. And angry ginger people aren't to be messed with. She's been assaulted, and her family has been slain by the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman) and her army. Understandably, Sonja wants revenge.
Adding to her anger is the fact that Gedren has stolen the talisman, a magical illuminated green rock that holds the power to create and destroy worlds. Gedren's theft of the talisman happened during a ceremony to destroy it due to its powers getting out of control. Most of the priestesses carrying out the ceremony are killed by Gedren's forces. One escapes: Varna (Janet Agren), who happens to be Sonja's sister. During her escape, Varna is wounded, but is found by Conan, sorry Kalidor. Varna tells Kalidor to find Sonja. Kalidor finds Sonja. Varna tells Sonja to find Gedren and the Talisman. Varna then dies.
Kalidor offers to accompany Sonja on her mission, but Sonja, being a strong independent woman way before they apparently got invented in the 2020s, prefers to go it alone. Unbeknownst to her, Kalidor stays on her track, and gets her out of sticky situations numerous times throughout the film.
During her adventure, Sonja meets Prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) and his servant, Falkon (Paul Smith). They are all that are left of the kingdom of Hablock after Queen Gedren destroyed that too. Prince Tarn is an obnoxious little brat, but inevitably learns some humility during proceedings. Eventually, Sonja, Kalidor, Prince Tarn and Falkon join forces to take on Gedren and her minions together.
Red Sonja's plot is very linear. It really is a case of evil Queen steals glowing green magic lamp-rock thing. Sonja and her groupies engage in sword fight after sword fight across various landscapes until they reach Gedren for the final boss fight. There's a tedious battle with a mechanical dragon part way through, and Sonja and Kalidor have a flirty knife fight, which is something I've not seen before. That's mostly because Sonja says that no man can have her until he beats her in a fair fight. The fight goes on so long that they're both too exhausted to take things to another level afterwards. And as I watched this film on TV, an ad break came on and suddenly I found Dormeo trying to sell me a bed for the next five minutes. Unless it wasn't an advert, and Sonja and Kalidor really did end up in a Dormeo bed. With a 200-night comfort guarantee.
The film is weird in that it feels low budget and amateurish. Special effects and animatronics are dated and poor, but it has pretty decent sets and scenery, and a surprisingly good soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Wonder if he knew what he actually signed up for when asked to compose the score for it? It's a bit like asking Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of a Wetherspoons. The acting is rather wooden. Arnie seems to think he's still a cyborg from The Terminator, but his performance is still better than the rest of the cast. The sword fights are performed well but there are too many of them and they go on for far too long. Towards the end of the film, it seems that even evil Queen Gedren has had enough. Each time Sonja is about to attack her, Gedren vanishes and appears in another location. After doing this multiple times, she appears to direct Sonja's attention to the conjurer who is facilitating this. Sonja then knocks over the conjurer's magic set, kills him, thus putting a stop to Gedren's relocation shenanigans.
Despite its flaws, Red Sonja is still a fun film. It's similar in theme and style to Conan the Barbarian but it's not quite as deep and is definitely an easier watch. That doesn't always mean better, just that it's something that doesn't really require too much focus and concentration to enjoy it. Sometimes a film like that is just the ticket. Not always though, but it was when I watched it.