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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 13837
Released: March 27, 2001 |
| Our Price: $4.69 |
| Used Price: $2.34 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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.
Description of Zardoz:
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
Zardoz Reviews:
- Will Appeal to a Few Who Will Love It . . 
2009-11-10 - The first time I saw Zardoz I found it quite baffling but it kept my attention the same way a jigsaw puzzle does - - - I was puzzled and perplexed and was trying to put all the pieces together. When it all came together at the end I had the same sense of satisfaction as you get when you finish an Agatha Christie mystery novel. Science fiction plus social fantasy plus murder mystery - these three types of fiction are unlikely to appeal to a large number of people simultaneously.
On the other hand the culture shock and bizarre future setting also kept me intrigued the same way the 'clongs'(canals and waterways) of Bangkok both fascinated and repulsed me when I visited it as a 13 year old tourist tagging along with my family. I suspect if we really could see 300 years into our future what we would see what strike us as equally incomprehensible and frightening. This is definitely not for everyone.
Strange, misbegotten film 
2009-10-29 - The Bottom Line:
A colossal misfire from John Boorman which is recently undergoing a critical re-evaluation that it manifestly does not deserve, Zardoz has all the hallmarks of a pet project that only works as a film in the crazy mind of its auteur: between the outlandish costumes, giant floating heads, half-baked ideas and slow pace, there's very little recommend this film aside from the fact that I haven't seen any others like it.
2/4
Zardoz
2009-10-28 - While it is a very early Sean Connery film I find it interesting in where the thought process was for time. Very cutting edge movie effects for 1974.
Zardoz: Ultimate cult classic
2009-06-30 - Somewhere past the James Bond years, Sean Connery took on a series of odd roles, including this curiosity as Zed, a "Brutals" killer. Of course this is taking place many thousands of years in the future where society is split between primatives surviving in the post-apocalyptic (is there any other kind) wasteland, worshiping their God ZARDOZ; and the immortals barricaded in their pristine enclave and bored to death. Or at least they wish they were. Thay can age, when punished, but they cannot die by their own hand. Oh, each commits multiple suicides but always are reborn asexually. There is no passion, no accomplishment, only existance.
Zed arrives and the society is quickly torn apart as they must face their own fears, desires, and an all consuming wish to die. Is he their savior, and in what form?
This is another visually stunning John Boorman film (Emerald Forest) which moves briskly while presenting some pretty heady material. Not your typical Sci Fi epic and is not for everyone. While sometimes a bit too obvious (Do you really not know what Zardoz is), it offers solid performances and enough quirks to keep you guessing.
Enter if you dare, but do not say you were not warned. Definitely not for children since I am sure there were never any Zardoz related toys sold at TRUS.
We are custodians of the past for an unknown future!
2009-06-15 - Since my teenager days, "Zardoz" literally fulminated me due its impressive, absorbing and demolishing script, filled of amazing special effects by then apart of the overwhelming direction efforts of one of my top British directors the always well reminded John Borman (Point blank, Deliverance, Excalibur).
Zed is the brave warrior chosen by an enigmatic God whom the human race obeys without reserves, giving him all its harvests and receiving weapons for its unconditional loyalty.
When he realizes the origin of the name a smart device (that I won't reveal you because it's part of the puzzle) he travels into the stone head (or should I say Stone- Henge? ) to discover an isolated oasis - far from the madding world - where the instructed people lives into a big burble of peaceful comfort but also an unbearable existential boring ( the renegades a sort of human people condemned to live forever and the indifferent ones ).
Once he comes he is imprisoned and analyzed until the same entrails of that race will make all their best in order to destroy that state of eternal bliss.
A fabulous film loaded of dark humor, smart cites and acidic vision respect the eternal and so expected paradise, beyond God and evil.
Bernard Shaw said once this clever affirmation: "A perpetual holidays: Here you have a very close approach about the meaning of the hell "
