Red Sonja

Let's just settle this before I start - this is a bad bad movie! You will be hard pressed to find such awful acting anywhere as Miss Nielsen, 'veteran' director Richard Fleischer stumbles blindly through a non-existant plot, and you will feel absolutely no sympathy for either the good guys or the bad - in other words you just won't care!

I would love to have hated this film - as a self-proclaimed 'movie-buff' this is the kind of film I should not even go near. But I'm loathed to admit...I enjoyed it! The two stars, amongst their awful acting, are actually quite engaging in a comedic way (intentional or not!). I began to relish the dialogue scenes just to see if a line could have been delivered with any more wood! The intentional comedy comes from a young prince (Ernie Reyes Jr) and his bodyguard (Paul Smith). Although I wished the prince to find the end of a sword as quickly as possible from his first scene, the interplay between these two characters was amusing, with some one-liners that could not have been more out of place in this film! The villainous queen (played by Sandahl Bergman) is unfortunately bland and forgettable. But one real treat for me was another completely out-of-place commodity - a great rousing score from maestro Ennio Morricone!

This was Schwarzenegger's return to his CONAN genre after hitting it big with THE TERMINATOR. It isn't too surprising that this was the last 'swords and sorcery' movie he did - but I promise you won't hate it! You'll want to!....but you won't!

Not really my bag as far as movie types go (not really into the fantastical) but I'm glad I saw this film. There seemed to be very little use of stuntpersons or body doubles in the majority of fight scenes. Bridgette Nielsen clearly worked it off to put on a good showing. How Schwarzanegger got top billing I'm not sure, but his limited part was, of course, excellently portrayed. Film quality was fair, considering the fantasy-esque backdrop and the fact that it was shot in the early 80s. I'll go out wide on a limb and give it a couple of stars.

My take: 6.5

The movie came out when I was three, so of course I didn't see it then. I saw it on TV when I was about seven, up late and bored. Unfortunately I kept coming into the middle of it, every time it came on. Finally one day I saw the entire thing, and adored it. I was about thirteen. A few years ago I had the fortune of finding it on video for a cheap price, $6.95. I watched it a lot, and loved it every time. This was a very unique movie, to me. It was the first Swords and Scorcery flick I ever saw, and ever since I fell in love with the genre. Fans of medieval, fantasy, adventure movies will have to check this one out, if they haven't already.

I rather enjoyed red sonja, Conans were better though...It always did bother that this was not officially a conan movie...Same actors! this should of been Conan 3...Just the lesser of the sequel. The film had adequate action, but for an adolescent! this was a very sexy movie, pretty actresses lots of mones and grunts, skimpy outfits, a queen that was attracted to all "parties"...well you get the picture. Just hate to see someone play a same roll in two seperate movies

This movie gets better with age. If you've got a sense of humor and don't need Industrial Light and Magic special effects, the combination of actors (all playing off the winsome Brigette Nielson) makes this a fun movie to see again...or for the first time.

It's probably also the movie that got Arnold in hot water during the "recall."