Reception
The movie gained poor reviews from critics. Schwarzenegger commented, "It's the worst film I have ever made." He joked, "Now, when my kids get out of line, they're sent to their room and forced to watch Red Sonja ten times. I never have too much trouble with them."
Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 20% "rotten" as some critics have called it "Hilariously awful" and "Unwatchably bad sword-and-sorcery nonsense".
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy gave it a scathing entry. The main criticism was that it was a "B-movie" with bad characterization, bad acting and an entirely clichéd display of swords and sorcery. In particular, the Encyclopedia accuses the movie of being homophobic and of purposely portraying homosexuality as a negative, evil trait. Gedren is portrayed as a lesbian whose rivalry with Sonja is based partly on the fact that Sonja once rejected her sexual advances.
Read more about this topic: Red Sonja (film)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)