Anime Review: Red Sonja - Queen of Plagues (Lights, Camera, Action!)

Red Sonja - Queen of the Plagues (UK Rating: 12)

The only survivors of this nightmare were Red Sonja and a woman who became her sister in that pit; when the corrupt king who ran the pits was overthrown by a benevolent one, the pair was freed. Many years have passed since that time when the story picks back up, and Sonja is called back by the kind who saved her. His kingdom is under attack, his people suffering from a plague, and Sonja is his last hope. She has to train a kingdom of civilians to fight against a dark horde of marauders and half man-half fish demons. Even worse, at the head of the army sits Dark Annisia, Sonja's sister from that hell.

Motion comics take the digital version of the original art of the comic manipulate it to give some semblance of animation. Moving the mouths like a ventriloquist's dummy, the bottom lip moving in some attempt to match with the script. Warping parts of the body by swelling and shrinking parts of the image or moving joints in arms and legs to animate combat. There was a series of Marvel motion comics, adapting the Marvel Knights line that managed to look half decent, but other than these, it's rare to see motion comics done well. This one looks awful throughout - speaking faces look like dolls, combat looks silly, numerous scenes strip out all of the quality of the art, removing faces and details from the majority of the story. This art is stunning in the comic and it's a travesty to see what it has been turned into here.

1/10

Awful

Gail Simone's story is superb and it deserved so much more than this lacklustre, low-quality adaptation. The art is butchered, the animation looks ridiculous, and the voice acting is so bad it almost starts to feel like a parody. It would have been better for Red Sonja - Queen of Plagues never to have been made, as if anything it actually sullies the original.