‘Red Sonja’ valiantly portrays literary heroine

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 (UPI) — Red Sonja, in theaters Friday, does not boast the resources major studios devote to their intellectual property. Nevertheless, its devotion to the source material and commitment to delivering to the best of its ability makes it more engaging than much of the competition.

Based on the character by Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard, Sonja (Matilda Lutz) is a warrior who believes she is the sole survivor of her tribe. When Sonja pursues some poachers, she is captured by Emperor Draygon (Robert Sheehan) and forced into gladiatorial combat.

Sonja fights alongside the likes of Petra (Rhona Mitra), Osin (Luca Pasqualino) and Daix (Ben Radcliffe), all the while trying to escape. Draygon is seeking the missing pages of the Book of Secrets that guided his empire’s technology, so the complete book would make him all-powerful.

Brigitte Nielsen previously portrayed Sonja in her debut 1985 film. That movie was fun, but it was camp at best and really just a vehicle to shoehorn in Arnold Schwarzenegger as a muscled barbarian blatantly similar to Conan but with a different name.

This new film, adapted by Tasha Huo and directed by M.J. Bassett, is focused on making Lutz’s incarnation of Sonja a viable movie franchise.

Robert Sheehan plays Emperor Draygan in “Red Sonja,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films

Filmed in Greece and Bulgaria, the movie recreates Howard’s Hyborian Age in beautiful locations. Sonja enjoys an early moment of peace with her horse at a lake before she sees the poachers.

The gladiator arena looks more like a computer generated background, such as in 300 or the Spartacus TV show, but those are comparable genre entries.

Wallis Day plays Annisia in “Red Sonja,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films

Many of the creatures are CGI also. The forest creatures are more convincing and elegant than the cyclops, but there are also many supporting characters wearing physical prosthetics on their face or in their mouths.

The fights are edited together one move at a time but it looks like the actors learned the choreography piece by piece. Lutz incorporates some modern MMA takedowns in Sonja’s fighting style.

Matilda Lutz stars in “Red Sonja,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films

She also rocks a metal bikini like the traditional comic book incarnation of Sonja, which the 2025 film notes is an example of the emperor exploiting her.

Red Sonja devotes most of its resources to the larger battles in the film’s climax. It may be easier to stage those in an unpopulated forest but there’s still real cannon fire and armies swinging swords and shooting bows and arrows. They did build a fortress wall for Sonja’s army to storm.

Matilda Lutz, seen at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, plays Red Sonja. File Photo by Rune Hellestad/ UPI

When characters address the fantasy exposition, talking about the Book of Secrets and ghosts, they tend to lay it on thick. Still, it’s no less congruous than the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones mythology.

Draygon’s henchwoman Annisia (Wallis Day) is plagued by the ghosts of every person she’s killed. Though quite literal, it is a poignant punishment for her evil and makes sense why she’d ally herself with Draygon, who promises to cure her.

The film derives some good humor from Sonja’s stoic persona. When she orders the fighters to keep Daix alive, a random gladiator pleads, “What about me?” Speaking out on behalf of generic cannon fodder in movies is amusing, though does not change the priority cast list.

It is interesting that the female characters — Sonja, Annisia and Petra — are the most earnest. It’s the men who get to be campy or flamboyant, like Osin bragging he’s never been touched in a fight, and Draygon getting downright giddy that his army is closing in on a cyclops.

There’s probably a middle ground that would allow the women to be acerbic like the heroes played by Schwarzenegger, but Red Sonja is in good company amongst unfaltering warriors. The action delivers and as a proof of concept, would warrant more adventures of Red Sonja on perhaps a bigger canvas.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.