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The Age
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
It's almost possible to feel affection for this dud of a film. Almost.
RED SONJA ★½ (MA15+) 110 minutes Do the times call for a lady Braveheart? I'm not sure they do, but that's roughly what we're getting in M.J. Bassett's underpowered Red Sonja, the latest reimagining of a character originally conceived in the 1930s by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. In the 1970s, Sonja showed up in Marvel comic books as an archetypal sword-wielding maiden in a chain mail bikini, a portrayal that formed the basis for the 1985 movie where she was played by Brigitte Nielsen, which disappointed many who were lured into expecting a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. This new Red Sonja doesn't have much to do with the earlier movie, nor with Marvel, who lost the rights to the character in the 1990s – and as a kind of ecofeminist parable, it also probably wouldn't have won the approval of the famously reactionary and bigoted Howard. We're in a mystical age of heroes, at the dawn of time. Sabre-toothed tigers and prehistoric rhinoceroses roam an ambiguously-located forest, as does the intrepid Sonja (Italian star Matilda Lutz), living off wild honey and paying obeisance to the mother goddess as she searches for her lost tribe. Before she can catch up with them, she's taken captive and forced to become a gladiator at the mercy of the wicked Dragan the Magnificent (Robert Sheehan), who fancies himself as both a future world emperor and a scientific genius, though his inventions aren't strictly his own. In an era when fantasy blockbusters tend to be either relentlessly flip or lumberingly pretentious, it's almost possible to feel affection for the straightforward B-grade badness of Red Sonja, a movie where a line like 'the fate of the world is in your hands' can be uttered with absolutely no irony. Almost, but not quite. The CGI-reliant action is unimpressive (the scene where Sonja and her new allies escape captivity is cut short as if money had run out). Lutz does a lot of scowling and baring her teeth, and has a way of making the dialogue of screenwriter Tasha Huo sound even more stilted than it is.
Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
It's almost possible to feel affection for this dud of a film. Almost.
RED SONJA ★½ (MA15+) 110 minutes Do the times call for a lady Braveheart? I'm not sure they do, but that's roughly what we're getting in M.J. Bassett's underpowered Red Sonja, the latest reimagining of a character originally conceived in the 1930s by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. In the 1970s, Sonja showed up in Marvel comic books as an archetypal sword-wielding maiden in a chain mail bikini, a portrayal that formed the basis for the 1985 movie where she was played by Brigitte Nielsen, which disappointed many who were lured into expecting a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. This new Red Sonja doesn't have much to do with the earlier movie, nor with Marvel, who lost the rights to the character in the 1990s – and as a kind of ecofeminist parable, it also probably wouldn't have won the approval of the famously reactionary and bigoted Howard. We're in a mystical age of heroes, at the dawn of time. Sabre-toothed tigers and prehistoric rhinoceroses roam an ambiguously-located forest, as does the intrepid Sonja (Italian star Matilda Lutz), living off wild honey and paying obeisance to the mother goddess as she searches for her lost tribe. Before she can catch up with them, she's taken captive and forced to become a gladiator at the mercy of the wicked Dragan the Magnificent (Robert Sheehan), who fancies himself as both a future world emperor and a scientific genius, though his inventions aren't strictly his own. In an era when fantasy blockbusters tend to be either relentlessly flip or lumberingly pretentious, it's almost possible to feel affection for the straightforward B-grade badness of Red Sonja, a movie where a line like 'the fate of the world is in your hands' can be uttered with absolutely no irony. Almost, but not quite. The CGI-reliant action is unimpressive (the scene where Sonja and her new allies escape captivity is cut short as if money had run out). Lutz does a lot of scowling and baring her teeth, and has a way of making the dialogue of screenwriter Tasha Huo sound even more stilted than it is.
