Red Sonja (1985) As a movie-buyer for a video store chain, I'd shake my head and smile at the avalanche of 'sword and sorcery' movies flooding the market in the mid 1980's......
Prompted by the 1982 success of "Conan The Barbarian", (introducing Arnold Schwarzenengger to the world), a pulp fiction genre stormed cinema.....
Though they may have seemed like ancestors of the Italian 'peplum' Hercules movies that reigned through the 50's, the 'S & S' genre dialed up everything.....bigger beefcake heroes, more luscious babes in chain mail bikinis, heavier swords, fantastical fantasy and entire hordes of assorted rampaging villains and monstrous creatures.
But only the original 'Conan', scripted by Oliver Stone and directed by John Milius, enjoyed a large enough budget to bring all the above mentioned ingredients to a vivid boiling point.
The rest of the films in this burgeoning genre labored, to varying degrees,under their low budgets and the minor talents of the the people recruited to make them and star in them.
The ever busy international movie mogul Dino DeLaurentis somehow convinced Schwarzenegger to show up as a 'Conan' clone and supporting player in 'Red Sonja'. The principal title role of the blazing red-headed girl warrior fell to Brigitte Nielsen, a dead eyed fashion model married, at the time, to Sylvester Stallone.
But even with its low budget, 'Red Sonja', unlike the many other S & S adventures , benefited from a way-above-average team behind the camera......directed by master-of-all-genres Richard Fleisher ("The Vikings", "20.000 Leagues Under The Sea"), photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno ("The Leopard", Fellini films) and scored by Ennio Morricone (do I even need to list any of his credits?)
So off we go to Barbarian World (similar to a MAGA rally, but with nicer scenery). Evil Queen Gedred (Sandahl Bergman) slaughterer of Red Sonja's family, has just seized the 'Talisman' a glowing basketball whose owner can use it to conjure up cataclysmic earthquakes and storms.
Pissed about her dead family and determined to save the world from Gedred's misuse of the glowball, Sonja goes a questin'. Along the way she's aided by Kalidor (Schwarzenegger) a fellow broadsword wielder......and later gets saddled with Prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes Jr.) a insufferably spoiled kung fu brat, and his long suffering minion-bodyguard Falkon (Paul L. Smith of "Midnight Express" and Bluto in Robert Altman's "Popeye"),
This unlikely quartet of heroes wanders, stumbles and otherwise falls in and out of all the traditional S & S perils.....and vast amounts of stuntmen ( or maybe just the same 10 or so) get sliced, diced, shredded and beheaded whenever Arnold and Brigitte hurl themselves into action.
It's an utter waste of time to discuss the low levels of acting here......nobody sits through a movie like this for nuanced performances that speak to the human condition. Not much dialogue for them to say anyway and that's a godsend, since most of them loudly announce their lines like they've only recently learned the English language.
Sword and sorcery completists shouldn't miss it, of course.....and for casual visitors to the genre, there's a decent amount of genuine fun to be had here......(I especially loved the battle between the pint-sized Reyes Jr. and Gedred's oily minion, played by Ronald Lacey (forever instantly recognizable as the Gestapo troll in 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark").
3 Guilty Pleasure stars (***).....but if you're bound to view it, I'd put it on a double feature with a quality 'S & S'er, such as the original 'Conan The Barbarian'........simply to add a little quality to the evening....
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