Rating: 
Summary: Vurry strangge.
Review: When half the reviewers praise it with 5 stars and the other half pan it with 1 star, that pretty well leaves it up to one's personal taste, doesn't it? My personal taste is strongly positive. I liked the movie, enough to watch it again several times.
Rating: 
Summary: All Time Worst Big Budget Film
Review: I have to laugh at the reviewers who suggest that 'dumb' people won't like this film. As if this film is some sort of deep, intellectually stimulating masterpiece.
This film is a perfect illustration of the famous Shakespeare line, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
There are a lot of 'confusing' plot points and hallucinatory extremely obvious symbollism to make the film look deep, but when you get right down to it, the film mostly just makes some very cliched obvious statements. Excellent cinematography and gratuitous nudity notwithstanding, the film is surprisingly dull and lacks any sort of emotion or suspense to make it a worthwhile film to watch.
Rating: 
Summary: An acquired taste
Review: First off, the DVD is fantastic - the picture and sound quality are ace (it has a ghostly, ethereal look to it and there's a French dialogue track to make the film seem even artier, although unfortunately the voiceover artist doesn't attempt to imitate Connery's accent). There's a trailer and some photo galleries, but best of all is a commentary by director John Boorman, who seems to project a mixture of pride and embarrassment at the film ('You can skip this bit', he says at one point, and elsewhere he admits that the film may have had too many ideas and that some became lost in the mix).And what a film. It's perhaps the epitome of the early-70s post-2001 'head' film, a conceptual sci-fi opus in which immortal survivors of a future cataclysm gather together in a forcefield-protected country mansion to seemingly participate in a telepathic version of 'The Weakest Link', only one in which everybody has to be nice to each other for fear of being artificially aged. Sean Connery is a mutant superhuman savage in a loincloth, there's a giant stone head, it's filmed in the countryside, all kinds of things are squashed together to form a film which doesn't make a great deal of sense but has a barmy power to it. The soundtrack has an excerpt of Beethoven's Seventh symphony and there are lots of naked women, and I'm sure that there's at least one early-70s folk/rock concept triple-album that draws its inspiration from the film. Actually describing its appeal is very hard. Its easy to dismiss it for being tripe, or to go the other way and herald it as a masterpiece . John Boorman had a knack of creating films which lend themselves to endless analysis, and you could make comparisons between the elitist society in 'Zardoz' and the dot-com boom, all kinds of things. This is very much a 'try before you buy' thing. Oh yes.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest, and most underrated, sci-fi flicks ever
Review: When director John Boorman made "Zardoz" back in 1973/4, he
was hot off of the success of his classic thriller "Deliverance",
and pretty much allowed to do whatever he wanted. The result
was this completely different sci-fi film "Zardoz", which took
place in the year 2293 and featured one of the most sophisticated
and complex plots of any sci-fi movie before or since. The movie
was savaged upon its release as pretentious and hard to follow,
and is today looked back on by movie guides as a campy 70s oddity, simply because it features Sean Connery running around
in oversized red underwear. However, even its harshest critics
are usually forced to admit that the film boasts an impressive visual style, which is indeed the case. Written during the immediate post-psychedelic era, "Zardoz" was
a clear attempt to encapsulate the intellectual and spiritual
concerns of those acid-drenched times. The themes and plot
twists are quite dense--so it is not completely suprising that
many people are bewildered by it--although anyone who takes the
time to understand will find it filled to the brim with interesting and very deep ideas that were completely alien to
sci-fi at the time, and still rarely discussed in any genre of film. The plot concerns a future Earth where a group of
evolved immortals live a life of imposed isolation from the
rest of humanity, which has devolved into brutal anarchy and
violence. One of the immortals, Arthur Frame, attempts to keep
the brutals in line by appearing occassionally in a large flying stone head and impersonating a god named Zardoz (taken from "The Wizard Of Oz"). However, one day one of the Brutals named Zed (Connery) sneaks into the head and finds himself taken to the Vortex, the home of the immortals. There he finds that although they are highly advanced, with a plethora of knowledge and psychic abilities, they have failed to solve the mystery of life and many have become either renegades (punished for psychic violence and aged to senility) or apathetics (a result of the boredom of immortality). Zed is slowly educated by several of the immortals and comes to realize that he contains the key--the physical vitality and energy, embedded in the lower chakra centers--to liberating the immortals from their slow stagnation. He eventually does so, but only after confronting his own preconceived notions of god and self, which involves killing all that he once was, just as he had murdered his previous god, Arthur Frame/Zardoz, at the beginning
of the film. He then brings death back into the Vortex, which
is welcomed with open arms. If this sounds confusing or perhaps too cerebral (some might
say pretentious) for you, then avoid "Zardoz". However, even if
one doesn't understand a word of what is going on, the visuals
will entrance: the movie was filmed in the gorgeous hills of
northern England/Ireland, the costumes have a colorful post-
psychedelic look to them, and Boorman's virtuosic directorial
style contains several notable sequences that are still discussed
by fans of the movie (most notably, the sequence where Zed receives the immortal's knowledge and powers through osmosis).
All of this is very trippy, with sequences sped up, slowed down
or reflected through mirrors, put through filters and other
tricks. And if some of what happens verges on over-the-top camp, what most critics curiously never understood was that
it was all intentional camp with touches of Monty Python-esque
humor, used to parody its own intellectual ambitions. My favorite sequence is the one in which Zed figures out that
the crystal connects every immortal; it describes itself as
the equivalent of god with some brilliant dialogue which sounds
lifted out of a book on the Tao Of Physics. Zed then realizes that although this god is more daunting than the one (Zardoz) that he had believed in as a brutal, he must still penetrate and kill it (similar to Zen quotes which state that one must,
paradoxically, "kill the Buddha!"). He then finds (in a very trippy and symbolic sequence involving mirrors) that he
is really killing himself, or his previous ego, and must reconstruct who he is and then restore the harmony between
physical vitality and psychic/intellectual might that had been disrupted by the immortals. I cannot think of another movie
that has handled such occult spiritual topics with such wisdom,
humor or stylistic panache. Boorman's commentary in the marvellously restored DVD version is also quite interesting, as
he explains how many of the special effects and directorial
tricks were achieved, and attempts to defend the film against
all of the criticisms that have been put on it over the years.
Connery delivers a magnetic performance, and overall "Zardoz"
remains one of my favorite films, and one of the most overlooked, underrated and misunderstood movies ever.
Rating:
Summary: It is a waste of film
Review: In the arena of bad movies, this one is right up there with Plan 9 From Outer Space only worse. This is worse than "Manos: The Hands of Fate" or even "Eegah!" This movie is a stinkburger. Why anyone would waste their life on this drivel is beyond me.
Rating:
Summary: Zardoz is a Science Fiction MasterPIece
Review: Zardoz in one of my favorites Movies,
and i watch it over and over,
and the more i watch it the more i love it. Zardoz is about life, death and imortality,
wich is the most important theme for spiritually
evolved persons. It's "to be or not to be" If you are dumb you will not understand the movie. It was kind of a low cost budget,
but to composate they create an artistics
environement wich is absolutely unique
and amazing. The DVD is pretty good, good image,
the english sound is good, but
the French mono sound is not worth it,
i always watch it using the english sound. The audio commentary is very usefull and you learn
a great deal of things about this movie. If you like Science fiction And/or philosophy,
this Zardoz DVD is an absolute Must. I also think this movies should be shown
in philosophy class.
Rating:
Summary: It puts the sigh in sci-fi
Review: Then I was a kid into sci-fi the 70's I heard about it and I always wanted to see it. The title sounded so cool. But it was rated R so I never had a chance to see in in the theaters. Unfortunately, I did get a chance to see it on video in the 80's. It's bad. Really bad. Really Really bad. The ideas, the execution, the acting, the writing, the directing, the editing, the lighting, the camera work, the sound, all exemplify why so much pre-Star Wars 70's science fiction is not worth watching. Just because it's wrapped up in a pretty new dvd package doesn't change how bad it is. Let's see, the hero is a killer and a bunch of immortals want to die, so he kills them. There that's it. Actually there's a lot more that happens, but it's not so much thought provoking as it is mind numbing. The worst performance of Sean Connery's career - worse that his role in The Avengers. Stay Away. Far away.
Rating:
Summary: Zardoz (1974) d: Boorman, John
Review: Zardoz was a film I woke-up to in the middle of the night a few years back and until recently I wondered that perhaps I may have had a little too much to drink. When a rewatched this DVD, I soon realized that I'm not an alcoholic, and I really did see Sean Connery running around in what looks like a giant red diaper, being forced to achieve an ... Director John [Deliverance (1972) / Excalibur (1981)] Boorman has created some visually exciting strange stuff indeed. A trippy, outdated, absurd and entertaining cult classic. In the year 2293 a giant stone head appears before a brutally savage people spits out rifles, and instructs them to hunt down and kill any human 'Breeders' they come across. This is because 'the ... is evil' and humans must die. Zed is one of these primitive people (Sean Connery in a role originally offered to Burt Reynolds) who stows away in the big giant head [3rd Rock From the Sun anyone!!!] The Zardoz head takes him to a land of utopia, consisting of half naked lunatics, apathetic zombies, and insane renegades who will never die. Eventually Connery comes upon an old library where a mysterious stranger teaches him how to read, and by accident he discovers that the name of his God had been derived from an ancient book [The WiZARD of OZ]. The inhabitant of this new utopia world have been controlling his people with spooks from the sky. The much needed commentary track helps with more insight into the films heady and pretentious metaphysical meditations. A cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Logan's Run (1976). Some may find this a little too far out there, but well worth the experience.
Rating:
Summary: Pan -n- scan is evil
Review: Pan -n- Scan is evil. It spreads disease throughout the land. OAR is good. OAR will save you from the poison that is Pan -n- Scan. Zardoz has spoken! See - this movie is still relevant. John Boorman is to be commended for making such a forward looking film on a limited budget.
Rating:
Summary: Lovingly restored to DVD.
Review: I'm going to mostly keep my review limited to what they've done with the DVD since if you dig back far enough you'll find my thoughts on the film (somewhere...) Briefly though, Zardoz is really unlike no other film. Its wonderfully muddled by an overly-think plot, and enough symbolism to ensure you'll never really get to the bottom of it. I absolutely adore this film and have seen it at least a dozen times (I'm always showing it to someone.) The DVD finally does justice to this film--justice not done by the VHS or laserdisc. There is a considerable amount of material that was cut off the full-screen edition and even the LD was cropped. Now we can finally see Sean Connery shoot John Boorman in the head, as well as the shot where Zed sticks his finger through a painting. Visually this is SOOOO much better--the hazy effect which looked like tape degradation is now clearly the result of cinematic techniques which look awesome here. The sound is good, but it was never really that bad, so no complaints there. The director's commentary is a hoot if not super-informative, and you can (as a bonus) watch the film in French. Ironically I think Zardoz may even work better in French (but its just THAT kind of film.) There are a few other goodies, but nothing really notable. What's more outstanding is just the quality job they've done in reproducing the original film on DVD. If you are at all a fan of the film, you really do owe it to yourself to own this addition since this is the first time we've had a chance to see it the way it appeared in the theatre since its original theatrical release. Lastly, to those who don't care for this film, the beauty of Zardoz that you're missing is how really deep it goes. Sure, it needs to be laughed at--Boorman tried to do WAY to much, but I'll take that any day over the hoards of films which do way to little. Zardoz actually does contain some greating acting and some poignant messages if you are patient with it. Sure, it looks weird...it looked weird back then! But films like this are a rare treat and the sort I enjoy tremendously, even if it isn't a -good- film in the conventional sense. I think a phrase I've used to describe it before is an 'enduring disaster'. Zardoz is definitely a mess, but it is a worthy mess--and so much more delightful on this DVD.
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