On the Emirates flight back from Central Europe, I decided to test my luck with the in-flight entertainment one more time. Fantastic Four: First Steps had genuinely surprised me on the way out, so I figured lightning might strike twice. It didn’t.
I watched Red Sonja Movie (2025). I finished it. I am still calculating the exact loss on my return on investment for those two hours.
Let me be upfront: I have never read a single Red Sonja comic in my life. I walked into this completely blind, which means I judged it purely on what it showed me on that tiny seat-back screen. And what it showed me was technically competent, but completely empty.
The Red Sonja Movie in One Paragraph
Matilda Lutz plays Sonja, a forest-dwelling warrior who gets captured by Emperor Dragan the Magnificent (Robert Sheehan, who is clearly having the time of his life in a role that asks absolutely nothing of him) and thrown into a gladiator camp. She fights. She leads a revolt. She wins. The end.
That is essentially the entire movie. Director MJ Bassett and writer Tasha Huo were clearly trying to make a proper origin story, and it feels like a standard fantasy action film, but the execution is incredibly thin.
No Stakes, No Character Building
Here is my core problem. Sonja gets wounded at a critical moment midway through the film, and I immediately knew she was going to survive. Why? Because it is her movie. She cannot lose. The film never once makes you believe she is in actual danger, and without that tension, the action scenes are just expensive choreography.
There is also zero explanation for why Sonja is such a terrifyingly skilled swordswoman. She just… is.
She wakes up, grabs a sword, and kills things with effortless precision. There is no backstory of her learning her craft, no earned competence, no training arc. A good movie makes you believe in the protagonist’s journey. This one skips the process entirely and asks you to just accept the results.
The Costume Situation
I will be honest. The iconic costume is in the film. It looks exactly like it should look. And somehow, despite all of that, it does not actually work on screen.
Lutz wears it like a uniform rather than a statement. Because the film never gives her enough personality to own it, the outfit feels like a Halloween costume rather than a character detail. It is an impressive achievement in missed opportunity.
Worth Reading Instead: The Comics
Now, since I just told you I don’t read Red Sonja, you might be wondering how I know anything about the source material. Simple. The minute the plane landed, I pulled up League of Comic Geeks and texted a buddy who actually pulls Dynamite Entertainment books. I needed to know if the character was always this hollow.
Turns out, she isn’t.
If the movie left you curious, my buddy’s intel says the current ongoing series to look at is the newly relaunched Red Sonja: She-Devil With a Sword, written by Rory McConville (who has done some heavy lifting on Spawn recently) with art by Pablo De Bonis. It actually gives Sonja real stakes and treats her like a complex warrior with an actual brain, rather than just a hollow gladiator trope.
But if you want the definitive starting point, the consensus is to grab Red Sonja: She-Devil With a Sword Vol. 1 by Gail Simone on Amazon. This run apparently has all the depth, character building, and earned competence that this movie completely skipped over. Hilariously, Simone was actually a consulting producer on this film, which makes the massive quality gap even more baffling.
Did you watch Red Sonja (2025)? Was your experience different from mine, or did you also finish it mostly out of stubbornness?
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