Red Sonja

During the 80´s it seemed to be a time period where you would make films with sorcery, swords and fantasty combined. It was like stepping inside a world you would only read about in books or comic books, where monsters and mythical creatures existed and brave men and women would fight against evil. No matter if they armed themselves with swords, an axe or knives, every lethal weapon could make a difference. It was during the 80´s some of the best sword and fantasty films were made such as the 1981 film Conan The Barbarian ( the very first big film role for Arnold Schwarzenegger ), the 1981 film Excalibur, the 1982 film The Sword And The Sorcerer as well as the 1982 classic The Beastmaster, where V The TV series actor Marc Singer played the iconic character Dar who can communicate with animals.  Since i mentioned Conan The Barbarian we actually had two more sword fantasy films during the 80´s with Schwarzenegger. The first one was Conan The Destroyer released in 1984, the official sequel to the 1981 original Conan The Barbarian film. This is a film that divide fans of Schwarzenegger, i would say it´s not as good as the original Conan film but still entertaining enough to be worth a watch. Then just one year later came a film adaptaton on the comic book character Red Sonja where actress Brigitte Nielsen played the main character. In this film you see Arnold Schwarzenegger play the character Lord Kalidor, he kind of reminds you of Conan in some ways but have a different personaliy. Red Sonja as a film is quite a mess but im actually a fan of this film. Does it have bad acting? Yes, and im perfectly fine with that. Birgitte Nielsen is actually quite fun as Red Sonja and the dialouge is terrible as well. It´s just a cheesy fun sword fantasy film if you are in the right mood from director Richard Fleischer ( who also directed Conan The Destroyer ). For many years there was talking about doing a Red Sonja remake and for a moment it seemed impossible to get this movie made. But here we are in 2025 with a brand new remake with actress Matilda Lutz takes over the role as Red Sonja. Is this even better than the 1985 film or is this remake a piece of trash that never should have been made?

A young Red Sonja´s ( Sofia Weldon ) homeland, Hyrkania, is invaded by barbarians, slaughtering most of her people and forcing her to flee into the woods nearby. Seperated from her tribe, she searches for other Hyrkanian´s while worshipping the forest goddess Ashera. Many years have passed and Sonja ( Matilda Lutz ) is a survivor taking down mercenaries, hunting animals for horns. She tracks their location down where the mercenaries collect exotic creatures for gladiator games honoring Emperor Dragan ( Robert Sheehan ). Sonja is caught killing mercenaries and captured by the men of the Emperor. They decide to use her to the gladiator games, especially to entertain their visitors who expect to see bloody fights. The only way to get out into the real world is winning the game, or your life ends inside the arena.

Since i am a fan of sword, sorcery and fantasy films in general i knew this might be something in my taste. The question is do we really need a Red Sonja remake in modern days? I think it is a good idea considering so many films just repeat themselves, while with a fantasty sword film you can bring out different ideas and have some fun with this genre without taking it too seriously. So compared to the 1985 film does this remake bring anything different to the table? I would say yes, this is a completely different version of Red Sonja that we saw in the original film. I think this was a good desiscion not trying to repeat yourself and do a different approach on this character. There are two very negative details regarding this film that i will mention so let´s get to the positive first. Actress Matilda Lutz ( who i recognized from the 2023 Netflix thriller Reptile ) as Red Sonja is definetely very different from actress Birgitte Nielsen´s version and i appreciate the changes. I don´t think it would have worked making her look similar in modern days, and i feel that Matilda Lutz manage to portrait this character good enough to make myself pleased with the result. I especially appreciate seeing her doing physical battle scenes, where you get to see her try to live into the life of her character. There are some scenes where you can tell she´s not the one doing all the stunts and that´s ok, as long as the action scenes are entertaining im all up for this. The female character Annisia played by actress Wallis Day ( who you might recognize from the TV series Batwoman as the character Kate Kane ) have a charming evil personality and i especially like her conflicts between her and Red Sonja. One of the biggest issues with this Red Sonja remake is the terrible CGI effects in certain scenes, they feel like they came from a low budget fantasy film from the  early 2000´s. If you don´t have the budget to make good CGI effects perhaps practical effects would have looked better. The main villain Draygan feels a little bit weak against a strong warrior like Red Sonja. Compared to the original film i will say that this is a better sword fantasy adventure than the 1985 film. The battle scenes are more well made, Red Sonja herself is more developed as a character and the plot feels more structured than the 1985 film. If you don´t like these kinds of films you will not like this film either. This is a film purely for fans of Conan The Barbarian and similar films and i appreciate the effort they made making this film. Director MJ Bassett may not have made a film that will find a bigger audience, but if you you just want a simple adventure there are far more worse films than this one. Thumbs up to Red Sonja from me, i guess im easy to entertain.

Rating: DDD