Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Alasdair Orr Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

bigeogle This movie totally rocks! It rocks hard!Rockin the rocks!

Tweekums In a distant future, after the end of society as we know it, humanity is divided. A small number, the Eternals who are now immortal, live within the Vortex while outside the Brutals live. Those in the Vortex still need food and the Brutals provide it; giving food to the floating stone head, which they believe is Zardoz, their god, which takes it to the Vortex. Zed is one such brutal but he learns the truth about Zardoz and sets about getting into the Vortex. Once there he learns that life for the Eternals is far from idyllic; they are bored and many yearn for death. Others see Zed as a threat to their existence and want him killed.This is very much a film of the early seventies with its trippy visuals and general feel. The story itself is solid enough with its suggestion that eternal life would be more of a curse than a blessing. This depiction of immortality is well thought out with those who transgress being aged further but never dying and others being so apathetic that they barely move. Outside we see that the Brutals are far more 'alive' despite the violent way they are forced to live. I liked the way the invention of Zardoz is explained and how Zed learns the truth. On the downside the costumes are a bit of a distraction with Sean Connery's Zed wearing little more than a pair of red swimming trunks for most of the film and a distinctly hippyish look for the Eternals. The acting was okay although leads Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling have both done better. Overall I wouldn't say this is a must see unless you are a Connery completist or are a fan of somewhat camp sci-fi.

Prismark10 Director John Boorman made a trippy, hippy film that is preposterously 1970s. It is some kind of pseudo intellectual futuristic allegory about society and religion.This really is an cultish, obscure film. Everyone knows about the silly costumes in the film but it is so rarely shown, very few people have actually seen it.Zardoz stars Sean Connery wearing some kind of mankini, at least he had the physique for it. He is a pony tailed barbarian who kills and slaughters in order to keep the population under control. They obey a giant stone head who regularly appears to collect the harvest from the slave population and spews out guns so the barbarians can launch a killing spree.Connery gets inside the head and into a vortex where he finds a race of Immortals who cannot die but they can age as punishment into senility unless they are born again. It looks like death would be welcomed by this people. There is a joker in the pack who pushes Connery to read and realises that Zardoz is pointing him to a yellow brick road.The Emerald isle stands for this futuristic Emerald city, having a real man about causes some eroticism amongst the women inside the vortex but the film is so loosely structured with some bizarre 1970s fashion, oh my John Alderton and his golden locks, please sir, just put it away.The film is rather impenetrable, bizarre and yet wondrous. Despite some not very good effects and not being such a good film it is an important part of British/Irish sci fi.

poj-man The perspective one has on Zardoz will depend on whether or not one saw it in the original theater run. Growing up in the 1970's brings a perspective that modern viewers just won't have.This review was prompted by a re-viewing of Zardoz prompted by a text message from a friend who claimed he wasted 2 hours of his life watching this awful tripe. My friend knew I would know Zardoz.I originally saw Zardoz first run at the Eastown Theater. The Eastown theater was the last big screen theater in the USA in the 1970's. Back then the neighborhood laughed their buns off for weeks over how silly it was. Zardoz is like an extended Monty Python script that goes on and on.The attempt at a sociological statement is laudable. The result is laughable.The giant floating head spews guns and ammunition. Well, how does the weaponry get manufactured? There are no manufacturing facilities anywhere. Also...would not ejecting Winchesters up into the air and down on the ground damage at least some of the weapons? Wouldn't it be wiser...since the Brutals enter the head to put in the grain...to just have the Brutals pick up the weapons on the way out? The Immortals in the Vortex have lost all sexual desire. OK...don't they still have to use the bathroom (like, where is the trash and sewage system in the vortex)? Don't their clothes get stinky (no one ever changes clothes...unless you became a banished aged one...which means)? Who makes the clothes for the banished aged immortals? What do the women do when they have their menstrual cycle (no stores to buy tampons at; do they bleed down their legs)? These are just a few of the unanswered but obvious questions about life in the Vortex. Life in the Vortex makes no sense.The film is also weighted down by the film construct of better than half the movie being made of motionless people standing or laying around pontificating. Note to all authors and filmmakers: if you want to bore your audience to tears then orate like heck with no motion and you will have them snoozing in no time.As teenagers we thought Zardoz was silly. As an adult I found it to be a nice idea for a movie but an idea for a movie doth not a movie make. I still found Zardoz to be silly