Zardoz

Amazon.com

A bewigged Sean Connery is Zed, a savage "exterminator" commanded by the mysterious god Zardoz to eliminate Brutals, survivors of an unspecified worldwide catastrophe. Zed stows away inside Zardoz's enormous idol (a flying stone head) and is taken to the pastoral land of the Eternals, a matriarchal, quasi-medieval society that has achieved psychic abilities as well as immortality. Zed finds as much hope as disgust with the Eternals; their advancements have also robbed them of physical passion, turning their existence into a living death. Zed becomes the Eternals' unlikely messiah, but in order to save them--and himself--he must confront the truth behind Zardoz and his own identity inside the Tabernacle, the Eternals' omnipresent master computer.

A box office failure, John Boorman's Zardoz has developed a cult following among science fiction fans whose tastes run toward more cerebral fare, such as The Andromeda Strain and Phase IV. An entrancing if overly ambitious (by Boorman's own admission) film, Zardoz offers pointed commentary on class structure and religion inside its complex plot and head-movie visuals; its healthy doses of sex and violence will involve viewers even if the story machinations escape them. Beautifully photographed near Boorman's home in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001), its production design is courtesy of longtime Boorman associate Anthony Pratt, who creates a believable society within the film's million-dollar budget. The letterboxed DVD presentation includes engaging commentary by Boorman, who discusses the special effects (all created in-camera) as well as working with a post-Bond Connery. --Paul Gaita

Description

Two societies, one intellectual (the Eternals) and the other physical (the Brutals) live side by side but never meet. Sean Connery is a Brutal out to shake things up.

Customer Reviews:

Zardog is the Most Interesting Movie You've Never Heard Of.......2007-04-19

Zardoz is the most important movie nobody (I know) has seen. Forget that there is a lot of nakedness and topless women; or, that you get to see a super-buff, 1974-era, Sean Connery running around for more than two hours in a pair of underwear; this is an important movie or utopia gone terribly distopian. Zardoz is written and played out like a broadway musical, with lithe dancer-actors, it is presented like a play. This is not a sophisticated movie but it will surely make you think. I would say that Zardoz is both brilliant and campy; insightful and kitchy, and brutal and actually very good at dealing with the concept of balance: in order to grow as men and as a society, one cannot -- must not -- merely separate physically from poverty, ignorance, sickness, and death; but, rather, integrate, integrate, integrate -- or perish. Bravo! See it.

Up, Up And Away..........2007-03-01

Zed (Sean Connery) hitches a ride inside of a giant, flying, stone head. Once aboard, he shoots it's occupant dead and flies off to "The Vortex", a place where the "Eternals" live. This is a land full of men and women who have no sense of what real living is all about. They just loll around, musing and pontificating about nothing. Zed spices things up for these immortal buffoons by being different and, oh yeah, by having a male organ that works! I kid you not! The rest is mainly Zed finding out that what he thought would be heaven is actually pretty dull. Unfortunately, so is this movie! John Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur) wrote, produced, and directed this elephant tranquilizer. Although, it does get an extra star for that hilarious flying head...

Zardoz???.......2007-02-24

The name says it all. From 007 to Savage. If you are a Scifi lover, you will really enjoy this one. Watch if for nothing else other than to figure out the name. Interesting storyline.

Mix of laughable and unforgettable.......2006-09-29

In about three hundred years, after some catastrophe has virtually wiped out our civilization, two branches of humanity remain to sparsely populate a now pristine Earth. The "Brutals" are uncivilized apes - ruled by an army of gun-toting, loincloth-wearing "Exterminators" who kill with little compunction. The Brutals are themselves on a divine mission, ordained by the great god Zardoz to cleanse the world "of the plague of men". Taking the form of a huge, flying stone head, Zardoz lands amid gangs of Brutals, preaching genocide and spitting huge piles of guns and ammo at his gleeful followers. "Go forth, and kill", spake Zardoz, even as his gun-firing followers fill his head with crops harvested by Brutal slaves. Zed (Connery), one of the Brutals, stows away as the stone head floats away, thinking it will bring him to the after-life known as the vortex. Zed - as the story will show - has already been infected with some form of heresy that Zardoz is not what he seems to be.

Thanks to a pre-credits monolog, we already know that Zardoz is a false god, an alter-ego of Arthur Frayn - himself a magician by inclination, and immortal by association. Frayn belongs to that other surviving branch of humanity, the undying and telepathic "Eternals". Ruled by a new age computer called the Tabernacle, Eternals use Zardoz to make pawns of the Brutals, who in turn harvest the world and feed them. Otherwise protected from the Brutals' world by an impenetrable field, the Eternals live an apparently idyllic yet emotionally and physiologically impotent existence within a reserve ironically known as "The Vortex". The Eternals would just as soon kill Zed, holding him little higher than an ape. However linked by the Tabernacle, dissension in the ranks over what to do with Zed allows him to learn the secret of the Eternals' existence and destroy it, while himself evolving beyond his murderously wanton origins. It turns out that the immortals have had enough of their lifeless survival, and now long for death (or at least mortality). But what force drives Zed, and what turned him against Zardoz?

It's hard to answer those questions, because so much of this movie is incomprehensible (including how many of the plot's enigmas were intentional). The script is full of laughably arch dialog and self-aware or simply laughable imagery. (You may recall a movie starring Sean Connery running around in a red diaper, wondering what that movie was - "Zardoz" endeth the lesson!) All the costuming is laughable, consecutive scenes don't lead into each other, the society of the Eternals is never really explained (the Eternals are immortal, yet not quite indestructible; it's never clear just how the Eternals are trapped into immortality) and there's way too much interest in the male anatomy. Worse than that, the movie is incredibly slow, and it's often difficult to understand just what's going on.

Yet, "Zardoz", for all of it's arch self-awareness is still a cut above Boorman's other losers. It still doesn't touch "Excalibur", though it does hint at Boorman's interest in Arthurian legend, with its rural and pre-modern looking settings, the Eternals at one point gathered at a round table; Zed's search inverts the legend of the Holy Grail - he seeks the cup that destroys immortality. Despite its flaws, the flick never loses its sense of enigma, and though it pains me to say, I found the overwhelming desire of the Eternals to die (and their ultimate denoument) gave the story an emotional coherence that nearly makes you forget everything laughably bad about the movie.

Sean Connory breaking out of the chains of Bond, a classic movie.......2006-07-29

This movie is one of the Genre of the post apocalytic, overlycontrolled society, but a different twist than many of the others. Based as a world of outlanders and the society, Zardoz plays more on the class differences and higher society comming together to "set the standards" and control or crush everything else. Connery plays a "brutal" from outside the Vortex, which is a society set up by elite in which science and itellectuals combined to explore the human potential and eventually gain inmortality. These intellectuals prey on the outsiders to gain supplies by using "zardoz", a flying large head. Connery stoes away in this flying head and enters the Compound, where he is studied, but eventually he aids in the fall of this Utopia. Definitely something different than the "big brother is watching" films of sci-fi, this film was different,and that is what makes it a definite pick for anybody who like the sci-fi genre, must see, even better to own now that its on DVD.

Average customer rating:

Zardog is the Most Interesting Movie You've Never Heard Of
Up, Up And Away...
Zardoz???
Mix of laughable and unforgettable
Sean Connory breaking out of the chains of Bond, a classic movie

Zardoz [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000065UHI