'Red Sonja' (1985)


So today was going to be another book review (I've got a few books in reserve) but the other night, I tried to watch 'Red Sonja' and fell asleep, during the film, not once but twice... It was a mixture of a number of things (well, two things... work and home-schooling my youngest daughter) Sheer bloody-mindedness meant that I couldn't post anything else on the blog until I'd managed to sit through 'Red Sonja' without falling asleep. Last night, I managed to stay awake for the whole film so here I am to tell you all about it. I thought I'd seen most of the sword & sorcery films of the 1980s but 'Red Sonja' apparently slipped the net, which made some of what I saw seem even more... odd.

When her sister dies at the hands of an evil queen, the fearsome warrior Red Sonja sets out to seek her revenge. Joining forces with the only man who can match her in a fight, Sonja battles all the monsters and magicians who stand in her way, until she finally comes face-to-face with the queen. However, as the evil one holds a talisman which can destroy the world, the conclusion is far from foregone.

Now, where does a chap start with 'Red Sonja'? Do I talk about the slightly unhealthy focus on Brigitte Nielsen's legs or do I go with the evil wizard/alchemist who uses his magic mirror to watch porn? Seriously...

I'll talk about those moments in a bit but lets kick off by saying that 'Red Sonja' wears its 'Conan' influences a little too obviously. I know it's set in the same world (not sure where on the timeline though) but featuring someone whose family is killed, learns to use a sword (to take her revenge) and then goes to face down the big bad evil in it's lair? And then bringing Conan himself into the movie but giving him a different name (I'm not sure what happened there but it's pretty clear who Schwarzenegger is meant to be...)? That's all a little too 'Conan' for me and to be honest, if I'm going to watch Conan then I'd rather it was an actual 'Conan' movie. 'Red Sonja' (the movie, not the character) tries to counteract this by placing a little more emphasis on the comedic moments but when these moments include an evil wizard who does the equivalent of switching on the TV, for his Mum, and forgetting that the last thing he watched was porn... I instinctively chuckled and then thought 'wait, what?' Nice attempt at doing something different but more often than not, moments like these don't gel at all with the setting or even what the film is about. And the wizard's laboratory was in the throne room, who watches porn in the throne room while the queen is there...?

Having said that, the resulting swordplay is fun enough to watch. I don't think Conan has ever done a backflip so it's good to see Red Sonja pioneer this move (both in regular fights and in the strange, 'sword fighting mating dance' that her and Conan, sorry Kallidor, get up to). It's also refreshing to see a hero let someone else take on 'killing duties' while they get on with the actual quest; nice delegation there Sonja. This does raise the question though of how Kallidor is so good at tracking Sonja down afterwards. A question that is never really answered... Sonja's horse is kitted out in bright red (just in case we forget that she is 'Red' Sonja, apparently) so maybe it's just easy to spot in a forest? I don't know...

What I do know is that all the swordfights and horse-riding seem to be there to show off Brigitte Nielsen's more physical attributes and if that's what you're watching 'Red Sonja' for then I guess that's ok. That wasn't what I was watching it for though. I fancied a bit of high adventure and you do get that but you also get a lot of leg on display and I personally reached a point where I felt like I didn't need to be reminded anymore. Or am I just getting uncomfortably middle aged now? Either way...

'Red Sonja' is fun enough but it really wants to be another 'Conan' and even Schwarzenegger parading about as a blatant 'Conan Rip-off' can't elevate it to that level ('Conan the Barbarian' got a sequel, none of that for 'Red Sonja' though). Still, not the worst movie to spend an hour and a half on though and at least I managed to stay awake this time...

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