Red Sonja

Red Sonja appeals to the same part of me that enjoys the silly pleasures of Warcraft (2016) and other hammy sword-and-sorcery material. Outside of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, Hollywood hasn’t quite elevated or mastered this mode of broad fantasy. With their heyday in the 1980s—see Dragonslayer (1981), The Beastmaster (1982), Krull (1983), Ladyhawke (1985), Willow (1988), and about two dozen other examples, each determined to capitalize on the Dungeons & Dragons game’s popularity—these adventures play like clunkily made cinematic storybooks for kids. But there’s something about them that sparks my imagination and provides a welcomed escape. M. J. Bassett revives the titular barbarian woman for a genre spectacle. The film was independently produced by various production companies and distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films for a one-night-only theatrical event on August 13, 2025, after which it’s bound to disappear into the streaming ether. Starring Matilda Lutz, best known from Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge (2017), Red Sonja delivers in terms of basic thrills and watchability; however, it never rises above its genre’s downmarket roots. 

Robert E. Howard, the author who conceived of Conan the Barbarian, also originated the character “Red Sonya” in literature that inspired the later version named “Red Sonja,” adapted into Marvel Comics and the 1985 movie—an offshoot of the two Conan pictures starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Roger Ebert described the first of these, Conan the Barbarian (1982), as “a perfect fantasy for the alienated preadolescent”—namely, boys. Red Sonja from ’85 could be described in the same way. The big-screen debut of Brigitte Nielsen, Red Sonja offers less by way of female empowerment than a male-gazey outlet with a PG-13 rating. By contrast, Bassett’s movie attempts to reset the character’s relationship with the audience, establishing Red Sonja not as a powerful sex object but as a hero whose captors leave her no choice but to wear the character’s customary bikini of metallic scales. She keeps wearing the ridiculous outfit, in which her midriff and limbs have no protection, seemingly out of defiance. When she fights against those who have imprisoned her, she does so while wearing the impractical garb—reclaiming her power in the outfit to subvert them. Or, at least, that’s what the movie would like us to believe. 

Under a mop of unnaturally red, out-of-the-box hair color, Lutz delivers a performance that, much like her role in Revenge, relies on limited dialogue and a lot of posturing. When she speaks, the Italian-born performer can’t quite settle on an accent, alternating between American, vaguely Italian, and classically British. The story finds Sonja living in the enchanted wilderness, searching for members of her slain tribe who haunt her traumatic dream-memories. Many of her people have been enslaved by the despotic, hedonistic Emperor Dragan, played by Robert Sheehan, acting on the same wavelength as Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger from last year’s Gladiator II. Dragan’s would-be lover and devoted protector, Annisia (Wallis Day), oversees the Emperor’s mission to, like a Miyazaki villain, cull the wild forests to industrialize, whereas the forest-dwelling Red Sonja fights for animals and Nature. The petulant Emperor also searches for an all-powerful Book of Secrets to carry out his evil ambitions. When Dragan’s forces capture Red Sonja, they throw her into the gladiator’s arena to fight mythical creatures for his entertainment. From there, she earns the respect of other imprisoned warriors and convinces them to rebel.

Refreshingly, neither Bassett’s treatment nor cinematographer Lorenzo Senatore’s frame linger on Lutz’s body or attempt to sexualize her. The actor’s well-toned physique is characteristic of a lean hero type, desired by many but never reduced to eye candy or shown disrobing for the audience’s visual pleasure. Bassett has dabbled in Howard’s milieu before, having directed the underrated Solomon Kane in 2009. In both, her treatment has a delightful B-movie energy that boosts its inferior VFX with assured production design and makeup effects. Plus, Bassett has a palpable enthusiasm for the material, and that comes through in the movie. The baboon-faced warriors on both Dragan and Red Sonja’s sides were particularly convincing. At times, Bassett inevitably draws inspiration from Ridley Scott, whose two Gladiator movies (2000, 2024) provide not only the film’s basic story structure but also a visual model for many of the battle scenes, both inside and outside the arena. The familiar fuzzies in the air and shaky-cam combat complete the signature Scott look. Elsewhere, the CGI alternates between surprisingly good and frequently cartoonish, leaving us to savor the straightforward human-on-human battles more than, say, Red Sonja’s running from fireballs.

Nevertheless, there’s much to like about Red Sonja. I enjoyed that Tasha Huo’s screenplay doesn’t stop every ten minutes to reiterate the stakes or explain the mythology. Random creatures—a cyclops, a giant scorpion, herds of cattle-like animals with strangely flat horns—make appearances in this world, and the characters accept them at face value, so we do too. When one character attaches a metallic gizmo to control a colossal monster, I didn’t ask how the technology works, and I probably enjoyed the experience more as a result. Although Bassett relies on digital effects and soundstages at Bulgaria’s Nu Boyana Film Studios for some sequences, much of the action appears refreshingly real, utilizing the natural beauty of landscapes and mountain ranges. At any given moment, some viewers may look at Red Sonja and laugh at everything wrong with it. However, I appreciated its style and attitude, which took itself seriously enough to deliver an engaging experience, allowing me to set aside my apprehensions and get into the spirit of things. The movie has its problems, but it’s also a lot of fun.