Sorry, this movie sucks

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

SPOILER: Zardoz is one of those movies you like or you don't like. For me, it is a real gem of sci-fi movie-making: it is a really strange and bizarre world we get sucked in and Sean Connery as Zed, the brutal, archaic warrior who confuses the rational world of the Eternals is really a pleasure to watch.Zaroz belongs imo into the line of the most daring and best sci-fi movies of the 70s: Soylent Green, Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, Stalker, Silent Running, Logan's Run, Clockwork Orange and the Omega Man and others. And no, Star Wars doesn't belong to those movies (I like Star Wars too) because Luca's just tells us a story which was told a thousand times before in Western movies or in fantasy or fairy tales but transferred into a sci-fi context. But all those movies like Zardoz have one thing in common: a truly unique story or at least elements and moments of true creation.

Zardoz (1973)Plot In A Paragraph: In the distant future, Zed (Connery) a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.Director John Boorman started to write Zardoz while preparing to adapt The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, but when the studio became hesitant about the cost of producing film versions of Tolkien's books, Boorman continued to be interested in the idea of inventing a strange new world, and pressed ahead with this one. After the success of his last movie Deliverance, he was allegedly given Carte Blanc to do as he wanted on the movie by 20th Century Fox. And it shows. Originally, Burt Reynolds was cast in the lead role (having just worked with Boorman) but had to pull out due to an injury and was replaced by Connery for $200,000. Allegedly Boorman never got over it, and thought Reynolds had let him down. As a Reynolds fan, I'm glad he didn't do it. It is awful. Truly awful. All actors have a real stinker or two in their resume, and This is one Connery's. There was not much for Connery to do but lend his physical presence to the role. He made his first entrance, firing his gun straight into the camera (deliberately recalling Bond) He was in excellent shape and ware very little (and orange line cloth and thigh high boots) for the third non Bond movie he was sporting a mustache, and this time he If you want to see Connery in a wedding dress, this may be the movie for you. I can safely say, I'll probably die, having never rewatched this movie again!!On a budget of $1.5 million Zardoz grossed $1.8 million at the domestic box office.

It's the year 2293. Humanity is divided into the immortal "Eternals" and mortal "Brutals". Arthur Frayn is Zardoz, a fake God and an immortal. He directs his followers the Chosen Ones to exterminate Brutals and gives them guns. Zed (Sean Connery) hitches a ride in the floating head and shoots Arthur Frayn. He comes to the Vortex and meet other Eternals with psychic powers like Consuella (Charlotte Rampling), Friend (John Alderton) and May (Sara Kestelman). The Eternals are suffering from a disease that makes them Apathetics.This is quite a weird psychedelic sci-fi. It borders close to camp. The big flying head is imaginative and outlandish. It's a real eye catcher. The problem is that the cheesiness never stops. If Sean Connery's outfit doesn't make you laugh, then the crystal obsessed flower-power rejects may cause a few chuckles. The story of struggling immortals is slightly interesting but lacks any excitement. The story has no tension but the silly style is at least interesting.

Filmmaker John Boormans' follow-up to "Deliverance" is admittedly not to all tastes. Boorman, who also produced and wrote the film, gives us a one of a kind experience that, ultimately, is better seen than described. Words like "weird" and "provocative" come to mind when viewing it, because it's full of ideas.It depicts a world of the future (the year 2293, to be exact) where a sly master intelligence, Zardoz, has contrived a way to keep unruly lower classes in line. One of the lower class people is an "exterminator", Zed (Sean Connery), whose job is to kill, period. One day Zed decides to seek truth, and hitches a ride in a great stone head, where he's transported to a "vortex", or environment, where the bored upper class, a group of immortal intellectuals, don't know what to make of him. He shakes up their world as much as they shake up his.The most striking element of "Zardoz" is the visual approach. Filmed on location in Ireland, it takes us from one surreal set piece to another, with deliberately stylized dialogue. The cast plays the material with very straight faces. Connery looks fairly embarrassed, and considering the fact that his costume partly consists of a red diaper, one can hardly blame him. (He wasn't too happy about having to wear a wedding dress, either.) Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, John Alderton, Sally Anne Newton, and Niall Buggy co-star; of this group of actors, Buggy does manage to inject some humour into the proceedings.This is sedately paced and short on action, but it's compelling in its own offbeat way, provided one is able to stick with the story. While it's not likely to be very appealing to a mainstream audience, it's not something easily forgotten for devotees of cult cinema.Seven out of 10.