Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

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

The early 1970s was a difficult time for Sean Connery. He had trouble in escaping being typecast as James Bond and chose some films he should have avoided. "Zardoz" is one of them. It isn't as if this film displayed any potential in the first place. The plot and script hardly make any bloody sense! There is no sense of narrative and almost nothing of interest occurs throughout. Sean Connery was probably too busy thinking about his generous paycheck to be too bothered about trying to make sense of this whole farce. He doesn't make much effort but merely goes through the motions. What the hell John Boorman was thinking when he agreed to direct "Zardoz," I shall never know! He has made some masterpieces of cinema but the above movie isn't one of them, sadly. About the only bit I found remotely interesting was when that gigantic head carved in stone is floating in the sky. That alone was fairly imaginative if rather daft. There is no incident to speak of and hardly any action. Why film buffs praise this rubbish is beyond me. One to forget.

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.

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.