Red Sonja is a complicated character.

Long before she became the iconic, blade-wielding, chainmail-bikini-wearing heroine we know today, Red Sonya of Rogatino sprang from the imagination of Robert E. Howard as a fierce, gun-slinging warrior woman with a personal vendetta against the Ottoman sultan. And while Howard also created another titan of the sword-and-sorcery genre — Conan the Barbarian — the two characters originally shared nothing but an author. It wasn’t until Marvel Comics stepped in that their worlds collided and the modern version of Sonja truly took shape.

For a whole generation, though, their introduction to her wasn’t in the pulps or the comics, but in the gloriously camp 1985 film starring Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That movie was big, bold, deeply imperfect, and fully committed to its own fantasy madness — the kind of thing critics side-eyed while kids raised on VHS and laserdisc watched it until the tape wore out. Nielsen brought a statuesque ferocity to the role, and its blend of cheesy dialogue, rubber monsters, and Conan-adjacent chaos earned it a cult following that still burns bright today.

Now, forty years after that first cinematic outing, Sonja returns. And while the landscape of fantasy filmmaking has evolved dramatically, the spirit of the character — wild, defiant, larger than life — still burns red-hot.

Directed by M.J. Bassett, this new film is not what I’d call great cinema. But it is exactly the kind of chaotic, gleeful fun I want from a Red Sonja adventure. Matilda Lutz steps into the role with grit, swagger, and just enough bruised determination to keep the whole thing grounded, even when the script wobbles like a drunken barbarian trying to stay upright. The story charts Sonja’s journey from feral forest-child to enslaved gladiator to vengeance-driven warrior queen, and even when the narrative beats feel familiar, the movie never forgets its primary mission: to entertain.

Let’s not sugarcoat it — the film is messy. Some of the visual effects genuinely shine, but others look noticeably rough, as if they were rendered on an ancient, wheezing Windows 98 system still running AOL dial-up. A few wide shots in particular have that unmistakable green-screen flatness you can spot from orbit.

The plot meanders, and Robert Sheehan’s Emperor Dragan the Magnificent is about as threatening as a damp matchstick — yet somehow, I was still entertained. There’s an earnestness here, a throwback sincerity that channels the old-school sword-and-sorcery films of the ’80s, where style often triumphed over sense and nobody cared because they were having too much fun.

And honestly? The film does exactly what it needs to do: it gives you a break from reality. For 110 minutes, I got to drop the everyday stress and sink into pure escapism — and for that alone, I’m grateful.

More film reviews coming soon, so…

Stay tuned!