Babe-alicious comic-book favorite Red Sonja is about to get a woke makeover because Hollywood just can't help themselves — but I can help you save eight bucks or whatever on watching a movie that fantasy fans are willing to hate even before it hits theaters.
Red Sonya of Rogatino might have been the fantasy genre's first female genuine badass. Originally written in 1934 as a gunslinging 16th-century Russian redhead waging a one-woman war against the Ottoman Empire, she was recast by Marvel Comics in 1973 as a sword-and-sorcery heroine.
Both Conan the Barbarian and Sonya were the creations of Robert E. Howard. She and her Marvel Comics doppelganger were fleshed out, as it were, with the prurient interests of teenage boys in mind. Red Sonja's signature outfit is a scale armor bikini. Because that's practical.
Well, no — but it surely did the job of fueling adolescent imaginations.
There was a 1985 movie version that boasted impressive fantasy flick firepower, including title star Brigitte Nielsen, Arnold Schwarzenegger (as Kalidor, not Conan), and '80s action queen Sandahl Bergman. Plus, of course, Nielson's Sonja-worthy physique. It still sucked. Nobody has been waiting with bated breath these last 39 years for another cinematic go at Red Sonja.
We're even less thrilled by the prospect of Woke Sonja, coming later this year.
Playing the title character for the new outing is Italian actress Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, probably best known for a 2017 gross-out revenge thriller aptly titled, "Revenge." Asked in a recent interview about the 2024 Sonja, Lutz said, "So, what I can tell about Red Sonja, is that the first ones and the comics were [made] with a very male-gazed orientation. This is a completely different story, and it’s very women-empowered, which I loved about the script."
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The character created for an audience of teenage boys is now being pitched as female empowerment. Here's a spoiler: the young males won't show up for Woke Sonja and neither will the imaginary personal pronouns crowd.
More ominously, screenwriter Tasha Huo hinted (above link) that "Red Sonja" would give audiences a glimpse into “how women uniquely survive out in the world." If it isn't with sword-wielding ass-kickery, audiences won't care.
Look, Red Sonja as-is is female empowerment.
Any attempt to jam a modern feminist message into a sword and sorcery fantasy setting is doomed to failure. But Huo is a newbie with no major credits to her name except for "The Witcher: Blood Origin," which ran for just four episodes and was loathed by Witcher fans and pretty much everyone else.
ASIDE: The new film also co-stars Rhona Mitra, and I can tell you with near certainty that (as almost always happens) Rhona will be A) the best thing in the movie, and B) killed off. Killing Rhona Mitra might be my least favorite Hollywood trope.
Even the movie poster says less "Red Sonja, She-Devil of the Hyrkanian Steppes," and more "San Diego Cosplayer of YouTube." Lutz was believable as a woman wronged in "Revenge," but at 5'7" (half a foot shorter than 6'1" Nielson) and with a waifish build, she seems unlikely to have the heft to carry off the role, much less Sonja's oversized sword. Say what you will about the 1985 movie but at least Neilson looked the part and, more importantly, didn't dis the source material or her intended audience.
The Red Sonja image at the top of this article is something I got out of an AI. Free AI does better Sonja than a $100 million Hollywood picture.
If there's anything that gives me a glimmer of hope, it's director M.J. Bassett. She hasn't directed anything particularly noteworthy of her own — her credits are mostly TV episodes where the producers make the important decisions. But she's shown with episodes of "Reacher" and "The Terminal List" that she knows how to shoot an action scene.
A good Red Sonja film could be a sexy and thrilling romp, but the writing, casting, and marketing of this one give me a bad feeling.
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