When I saw this movie as a small kid on local television, I didn't care for it. Considering I was at an easily-impressed age, when boys easily love dumb violence, that's a bad omen. The thing is, it was broadcasted as "Conan The Warrior" Over the years, I've told people about this but apparently I'm the only once to have experienced this. Either my memory was mistaken, or the TV station/syndicator unilaterally made that title-change.
"Red Sonja" might as well have used that fantasy label. "Conan" Producer Dino DeLaurentiis initially had this project set-up as a "spin-off," with Sandahl Bergman, the heroine back in John Milius' "Conan the Barbarian" slated to be the star.
"Sonja" was shot by the same director of "Conan The Destroyer" and Arnold Schwarzenegger was booked to reprise his iconic uberman, with front billing. Hell, the Red Sonja character was introduced in the "Conan" Comics.
Along the way, the overt cinematic "Conan" ties were severed and Bergman decided instead to play the villain. DeLaurentiis then casts Sylester Stallone's then-squeeze Brigitte Nielsen for the title role, and right from the blade this movie was screwed to oblivion, or as much as she was when apparently Stallone "shared" her with Arnold. [:p]
Her tabloid affair with the Italian Stallion and her work in his "Rocky IV" her absence of acting talent was besides the point. She's so incompetent, if your family was held at gunpoint and she was told to act, they might as well start planning their funerals. Not only can she not act her way out of a paper bag, its tied down with rocks and thrown into the river.
Yet that's not even her fatal flaw. Nielsen's problem is that for this action role, she simply lacks the physical charisma to pull it off in spite of her acting limitations. Now while I won't ever accuse Bergman of being a "good" actress, she at least was pretty credible in her sword swinging and flipping around in "Barbarian." With Nielsen, you never buy her doing any of that.
Then there is the fact that Bergman is herself just terrible as the adversary. There is a clear reason why the best actor in such a genre flick always plays the antagonist, for they can elevate the material, and raise the stakes for the seemingly over-matched hero.
But when its an average player causing hell for a bad actress, "Red Sonja" was just asking for utter mediocrity, and then some. I've seen pornos with more compelling and captivating catfight finales.
What I think is just too damn bizarre is that for such a PG-13 picture for its time, its got one very screwed-up sexual dynamic between those two. Bergman wanted Nielsen in lesbian lust, Nielsen spurns her, Bergman has her Army goons brutally rape her, Nielsen slashes Bergman in the face before fleeing away.
So the villain hates the hero because they wouldn't do the Sideways Tango and gave her a scar, and well the hero is peeved over a train being pulled on her.
What the hell?
Though to me, as incredible as it may sound, the most insanely ridiculous nonsense about "Red Sonja" is Schwarzenegger. In some foreign territories, this movie was titled "Kalidor" after Schwarzenegger's character. It's just so damn silly and humorously bad of how his glorified cameo is worked into "Sonja."
Nielsen gets in trouble, Arnold shows up, deals with it, then he runs off. Repeat this scene several times. One would think she would have told him at one point to ever stick around or flat-out buzz off, right? Then again, maybe she has a thing for those "damsel-in-distress" sex games....
You know you have a bad movie when its more fun and interesting to mock it than to actually review it.
