Plot: Captured. Chained. Forced to fight for survival. Red Sonja must battle her way through the blood-soaked pits of a tyrant’s empire and rally an army of outcasts to reclaim her freedom and take down Dragan and his ruthless bride, Dark Annisia.
Review: Forty years ago, Brigitte Nielsen led the action epic Red Sonja from Conan the Destroyer director Richard Fleischer, co-starring that film’s lead, Arnold Schwarzenegger. A critical and commercial failure, Red Sonja was the sole live-action adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s character, despite countless attempts to bring the character to life from Robert Rodriguez, Bryan Singer, Simon West, Hannah John-Kamen, Amber Heard, and more. The new take on Red Sonja, starring Matilda Lutz and directed by M.J. Bassett, is a modernized take on the fantasy character that shifts away from the boobs and broadsword style of the 1985 original and aims to be a grittier take on the source material. The result is a film with glimmers of potential wrapped in an underwhelmingly formulaic story and mediocre special effects.
Red Sonja serves as the origin story of the barbarian Sonja (Matilda Lutz), a member of a tribe of people slaughtered by the Emperor Dragan (The Umbrella Academy‘s Robert Sheehan) who is on a quest to find the second half of a mystical book that he believes will give him the instructions needed to complete machines that will aid in his takeover of the entire world. Alongside Dragan are General Karlak (Martyn Ford), a human/animal hybrid, and skilled but mentally unstable warrior Annisia (Wallis Day). When Sonja tries to stop one of Dragan’s raids, she is sent to serve as entertainment in the Emperor’s fighting pits. Echoing the first half of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, Sonja turns the crowd to her favor as she fights her way through the ranks to kill Dragan. Under the tutelage of Petra (Rhona Mitra), Hawk (Michael Bisping), and Osin (Luca Pasqualino), Sonja becomes a symbol for the enslaved fighters.
Barely one hundred minutes, Red Sonja is not a great movie. There are moments in the film where I thought it was turning a corner and may be better than I initially thought, but those moments were fleeting. From the beginning, Red Sonja lacks the cinematic quality that elevates many fantasy films from looking like they are shot on soundstages or sets. You can tell which sequences in The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars: The Force Awakens were filmed in man-made forests, but the quality of the production values and the lensing by the director of photography elevate it to another scale. Red Sonja is filmed almost exclusively in close shots that avoid skylines and horizons. When we get those visuals, they are augmented using computer-generated imagery that looks more cost-effective than realistic. Some aspects of the film work, like the animal hybrid make-up and the cyclops monster, are just two elements amongst dozens of examples of bad CGI.
What works best is Matilda Lutz. While she is not the buxom, cliche bombshell from the pages of Marvel Comics, Lutz is a more believable physical presence. Echoing the stature of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Lutz makes for an unexpectedly refreshing Sonja. While the wooden dialogue often risks ruining her performance, the energy that Lutz brings to making Sonja a fully realized warrior rather than a pin-up model helps the film from becoming an utter disappointment. Equally, Wallis Day affords herself well as Annisia, the warrior tormented by voices in her head, who longs to be the Empress to Dragan. Robert Sheehan does what he can with the role of Dragan. Despite a silly plot twist to his origin, Sheehan evokes some of the smarminess that made Tom Hiddleston’s Loki such a beloved character. The problem for all three of these actors comes from a script that is not substantial enough to lift their characters out of mediocrity.
Written by Tasha Huo (Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, The Witcher: Blood Origin), Red Sonja delivers an original take on the characters created by Robert E. Howard. Huo tries to present them outside of the male-oriented expectations of the 1985 film. There is a scene early in the movie where Matilda Lutz wears Red Sonja’s trademark chainmail bikini to show how ridiculous such an outfit would be for a warrior. In the following sequence, Lutz wears armor with a bare midriff in the most nonsensical gear during a massive battle. The desire to elevate Red Sonja out of the male gaze cannot get past these silly little moments. Director M.J. Bassett, known for directing action series like Reacher, The Terminal List, and FUBAR, does what she can within budgetary restrictions. A handful of well-choreographed action scenes are fun to watch, but lose some power due to being shot by Lorenzo Senatore using cameras that lack any cinematic quality. Add in the generic score by Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, and the film makes Marcus Nispel’s 2011 Conan the Barbarian look like The Return of the King.
Red Sonja could have been something had it been given a moderately higher budget to allow for better camera work or stronger special effects. The action sequences and the screen presence of Matilda Lutz are deserving of a better movie and cannot rescue M.J. Bassett’s formulaic take on the source material. The shift from skin and steel to a stronger framework could have worked if Red Sonja were released twenty years ago. As it stands, Red Sonja cannot hold its own alongside small-screen fantasy epics like House of the Dragon or The Wheel of Time. With the tease of further potential adventures featuring Matilda Lutz as the title character, I hope a stronger creative team can get past this lackluster reintroduction of the chainmail-wearing hero.
Red Sonja opens in theaters on August 13th.
Source:
JoBlo.com
