Review: Red Sonja (2025)

Genre: Action / Adventure / Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery
Content Rating: Rated R for strong/bloody violence.
Director: M.J. Bassett
Writer: M.J. Bassett, Tasha Huo, Joey Soloway / Comic: Roy Thomas
Studio: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Release Date: July 31, 2025 (Russia) / August 13, 2025 (U.S.)
Runtime: 110 minutes
Watched On: Prime Video
Review Spoilers: Spoiler-free

Synopsis

Red Sonja is a vengeful warrior known as a "She-Devil with a sword". She is trying to protect her forest from destruction by an Emperor with machines of destruction.

Nerdy Take

In my opinion, Matilda Lutz was not the right choice for the barbarian babe, Red Sonja. I'm not into a lot of muscles but when I watch something from the Conan Universe I expect to see tight bodies with definition. Her mannerisms didn't portray powerful warrior either. Wallis Day outshines the rest of the cast as Annisia. And Robert Sheehan's character, Emperor Draygan the Magnificent, was insufferable but played well by him.

The story line was predictable and boring and the director didn't help bring it to life at all. Scenes meant to bring on emotion fell flat. Even the music and sound didn't bring on any feelings. And when it came to action, there weren't any memorable stunts and the fighting lacked power. Red Sonja didn't come off to me as a good fighter. Her backstory lends no credit to her knowing how to fight let alone know how to deal with someone in armor.

I was let down when it came to costumes and makeup. The generic beauty makeup was fine but when it came to war paints it came off muddy and unprofessional. Sonja's armor upgrade was silver which I thought was suppose to be metal but it looked like poorly done leather armor. Scale mail bikini makes sorta since but it being draped on the chest area of a breast plate just looks stupid. I expect a bit of whimsy with comic adaptations but a lot of the looks came off as bad costumes. And the sharpened teeth for one of the characters just looked like an overbite.

Some of the filming locations where beautiful and fit the movie but the CGI stuff wasn't that great. I give this movie one star only because some of the filming locations were pretty and I feel bad for some of the actors and actresses. The rest of the movie was horrible.