At the tender age of eight, Robert Rodriguez held a “Conan the Barbarian” comic in his hands for the first time. The “Sin City” director was so fascinated by it that he had the dream of adapting Robert E. Howard’s brutal material for the big screen ever since his first steps in the film business. In the summer of 2008, the fulfillment of this wish seemed within reach when he and his production company Troublemaker Studios announced a reboot of the cult 1985 fantasy film “Red Sonja,” set in the same universe as “Conan,” with his then-partner Rose McGowan in the title role. We weren't the only ones who would have liked to see the expected trash spectacle, but nothing came of it. Instead, rights holder Nu Image began a 13-year impasse with producer Avi Lerner.
With Simon West (“Expendables 2”) and Bryan Singer (“Bohemian Rhapsody”), two well-known candidates have now been considered for the director’s chair. Several drafts of the script – most recently from “Six Feet Under” producer Joey Soloway – were rejected. Ultimately, MJ Bassett, a filmmaker who already has a comic adaptation by Robert E. Howard in her filmography, “Solomon Kane,” was awarded the contract. Production began in August 2022 and was shot primarily in Bulgaria. In this case, however, what takes a long time turns out to be anything but good. Because the fantasy spectacle, full of mediocre CGI, fights almost convulsively for its independence between a twisted eco-message and outrageous retro-futuristic elements.
Matilda Lutz is not necessarily to blame for the failure.
Since a barbarian attack on her village, the martial Red Sonja (Matilda Lutz) has been wandering through the forests of Hyrcania in search of her tribe. One day she follows the poaching forces of the diabolical Emperor Draygan (Robert Sheehan) as he scours his empire for the missing second half of the powerful “Book of Secrets”, but is ultimately overwhelmed. After being kidnapped to the capital of the empire, Red Sonja has to prove herself in gladiator fights in the arena. However, together with other slaves around the Hyrkanian Prince Osin (Luca Pasqualino), she manages to escape – with Dragan's troops close on her heels…
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After a brutal but short flashback to the barbarian attack, beautiful landscape shots dominate the action. The seemingly endless forests appear juicy green, especially when the color saturation is turned up to the maximum. At least in the first few minutes, “Red Sonja” literally makes the now somewhat dusty original film with Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger look old with the title character's vivid, fire-red hair color. But just a few highly polished minutes later, the first frown among fans of the original is inevitable: In addition to a half-baked animated appearance of prehistoric rhinos dying in their own CGI blood, what is particularly irritating is the arrival of the slick Draygan in black overalls, who rolls up in a tank truck with a spiked roller and fire chimneys that is reminiscent of the “Mad Max” film series.
Admittedly, this retro-futurism, which is strange at first, is then explained with the contents of the mysterious book. But it still remains unclear why this writing was previously lying around, apparently completely unread, by a Hyrkanian tribe that was anything but progressive. You shouldn't look for anything like logic in the script by Tasha Huo, who was heavily involved in the script of the mini-series “The Witcher: Blood Origins” and said in an interview that she was revealingly honest that she often lacked structure, especially between the beginning and the end.
It's all very polished, but at least when it comes to the costumes you can't necessarily blame “Red Sonja”.
In terms of effects, the appearance of a furious giant cyclops, which is unleashed on Red Sonja and other gladiators in the arena in the middle of the film, is a success. Overall, MJ Bassett limited himself to the essentials in the action scenes – probably also because of the limited budget: cut, stab, dead. This doesn't even come close to the elaborately choreographed (sword) fight scenes from 1985 – although fans of that time will certainly have fond memories of the courtship-like blade duel between Red Sonja and Kalidor.
Even if neither the character of Kalidor nor Arnold Schwarzenegger appear 40 years later in the reinterpretation, which noticeably strives for independence, there is still a similar relationship between Red Sonja and Prince Osin. The difference: The common scenes between the loner, embodied by Matilda Lutz as aloof, and the pretty boy Luca Pasqualino (“Snowpiercer”), who is completely interchangeable due to a lack of character development, remain simply too wooden and cold for any subliminal sexual vibes.
Despite the cliffhanger, “Red Sonja 2” probably won’t come
Even among the supporting characters, there are no characters that set any accents that can even come close to holding a candle to the cocky, cheeky Prince Tam and his goofy, effeminate servant Falkon as the humorous soul of the film. On the contrary: Veronica Ferres (last seen in “The Unholy Trinity”) gets on Sonja's mother Ashera's nerves as Red because she always appears in flashbacks using dramaturgically portioned salami tactics that are used to makeshift patches of plot holes. And there are an indescribable number of them in this B-movie that strives to be grimly serious – not to mention the annoying cliffhanger.
Conclusion: The reboot has almost completely broken away from the somewhat outdated but charming cult film from the eighties. With a new approach, but interchangeable characters and mediocre effects, the extremely soulless fantasy spectacle “Red Sonja” remains a wasted opportunity despite 17 years of development.