Red Sonja (1985)

Red Sonja: Directed by Richard Fleischer. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brigitte Nielsen, Sandahl Bergman, Paul L. Smith. The fearless warrior Red Sonja sets out to avenge her family’s murder and rid her kingdom from the tyrannical rule of evil Queen Gedren.

“Letu0026#39;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, u0026#39;veteranu0026#39; 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 wonu0026#39;t care!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI would love to have hated this film – as a self-proclaimed u0026#39;movie-buffu0026#39; this is the kind of film I should not even go near. But Iu0026#39;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!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis was Schwarzeneggeru0026#39;s return to his CONAN genre after hitting it big with THE TERMINATOR. It isnu0026#39;t too surprising that this was the last u0026#39;swords and sorceryu0026#39; movie he did – but I promise you wonu0026#39;t hate it! Youu0026#39;ll want to!….but you wonu0026#39;t!”