everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Brilliant and touching

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

. . . RED SONJA flick of note playing on the Big Screen during the past two or three decades. That's because this offering from the 1980s got it right the first time. While BATMAN, SUPERMAN, SPIDER-MAN, and THE INCREDIBLE HULK all suffered through countless "reboots," newcomer "Nielson's" rating began--and ended--on top. Her dazzling RED SONJA debut is the Major League Baseball equivalent of some American League flame-throwing rookie relief pitcher getting his first-ever MLB at-bat with the bases loaded but two outs in Game Seven's bottom of the 18th and earning a World Series ring by hammering a walk-off Grand Slam on a 3-2 pitch. Eight guys played Batman, but you'll NEVER see even half that many chicks portraying RED SONJA. Just as T.A. Edison could only electrocute "Topsy" the universally beloved Coney Island elephant once (1904--you can STILL see this pachyderm sizzle at the taxpayer-funded U.S. Library of Congress website), RED SONJA could only give birth to WONDER WOMAN & Company a single time.

This one screams girl power in the age when a 2000's idiot critic may suggest it didn't exist. The truth is, for every guy flick you had a girl flick for the second date back in the 80's, because American cinema was about the creation of heterosexual couplings, not dividing or replacing them with candied men cowering before their women, or same sex unions.Of course, then the Madonna fans graduated from cinema schools.Girl power, from the virgin amazons guarding the talisman at the start, to the evil queen of supreme power who comes to claim it for use in what any woman in power generally would.Red Sonya, was so hot and so badass at the same time it made you proud to be light hued and ginger haired. Boy or girl, this movie had it all, and was a great empowerment film.Like "Legend", in that it brought boys and girls along for the ride and left both respecting the role of the other.The novelty characters and bad special effects are on a par with, Deathstalker, but the swordplay is very good for the time.A must watch for S&S fans.

Red Sonja is awful. Simple as that. But then that doesn't explain why I've been watching it for around thirty years and loving it more and more every time. It's a Schwarzenegger film. Only it isn't. It isn't because he's neither the titular character, nor in it enough to really be classed as so. Brigitte Nielsen is 'Red Sonja' and therefore the star. Only she was even less well-known at the time than our Austrian friend. He had at least played Conan and, believe it or not, was also supposed to reprise the barbarian's role here – only something to do with the film-makers not having the rights meant that his character had to be changed to 'Calador.' Arnie is basically the big name to sell the film on while his role extends to little more than an extended cameo.Anyway, the film follows Sonja and her quest to avenge the death of her family in a Lord of the Rings style world of magic and wizards. And she's pretty good. Or at least she's pretty. If you look closely at her she's actually not that muscular, so dispatching numerous bad guys with her sword is kind of a little far-fetched (but hardly the most far-fetched aspect of the story!). Plus every time she gets in danger, Conan (sorry – Calador), turns up and saves her, or at least someone else does. Like I said, Arnie pops up to help her, plus an annoying kid and his submissive wet blanket of a 'protector' (basically a fat servant who fights with a bone for some reason) also lend a hand every time she's about to get stabbed in the back (which happens more than you may imagine).The two leads may look the part, but the fact that neither are born to speak English and this film was made early in their careers, makes their dialogue extremely clunky and laughable. You can practically see them thinking of their next line before they deliver it.So, acting is poor, dialogue is laughable, characters pretty wooden. And yet I love it. It's one of those so-bad-it's-good kind of films. It has to be seen to be believed. If you like Conan (the original!) then you should like this. And, believe it or not, there are actually some attempts at 'character arcs' involved here. Sonja must learn to trust men (and do other things with them) while the young kid must learn to actually be nice and not be such an insufferable brat.Even Arnold was quoted as saying that Red Sonja is so bad that he uses it as a threat to discipline his children – if they misbehave they have to watch it ten times in a row, resulting in his kids never really giving him much bother. I must remember than when my own daughter wants to stay out late. Either way, it's so bad that I love it. Sorry, Arnold, but I disagree!

This movie is advertised as an Arnold Swartzenegger movie but he really only plays a supporting character to the role of Sonja (Bridgette Neilson). The story of this movie is quiet good, carrying lots of fantasy elements in it like guardian beasts, huge spiders, wicked queens, and a powerful artifact that can destroy the world. Unfortunately the acting is really bad. One may think that the actors in this movie, even the famous Arnie, never went to acting school. This is surprising because Neilson was much better in Beverly Hills Cop II. But in this movie most of the lines were poorly delivered and the script was incredibly corny.The plot is a typical fantasy plot. A powerful artifact is to be destroyed but the wicked queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergmen) comes along with her powerful army and kills all of the priestesses and steals the talisman. The thing about the talisman is that only a woman can touch it so Gedren is very happy. She then takes the Talisman to he castle and begins her plan to conquer the world. Sonja, who has come afoul of Gedren before, learns of the attack in which her sister is killed and storms off after Gedren.This movie seems to be an anti-feminist movie. Women have the power in this movie, in regards to the talisman, and play a prominent part. Sonja hates men and believes that she can get along with out having to rely upon any man. Yet Prince Kalidor (Arnold Swartzenegger) always appears and fights for her when it seems that she is almost defeated. This movie seems to try to say that women and men need to work together and they cannot write each other out. There is also the idea, as symbolised by Kalidor and Sonja being swordspeople of equal ability, that there is no difference between men and women and that they are equals.It is a shame that most fantasy movies only come out as half-hearted attempts at some entertainment. There is truly very few good fantasy movies on the shelves of the video store. Fantasy is more of an uncliched genre as it has not really been explored as much as it could be. So far it has remained the realm of the novel but there is much room for it to move to the big screen.