By William Bibbiani

There’s a word I scribbled in my notes about the new “Red Sonja” that stands out among the rest. After pages full of sentences like “Science = Bad?” and “Why are scientists setting a fire during a rainstorm?” and “Sonja’s kidnapped horse is inexplicably imprisoned next to the important science orb of unspeakable power, because reasons?” there lies a single word. Underlined. And that word is … “Papyrus.”

Papyrus is not the most respectable of fonts. Even before “Saturday Night Live” correctly roasted James Cameron for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the CGI in “Avatar” only to cheap out on the subtitles, papyrus was generic shorthand for kinda-old-looking-but-not-really. It’s the font middle schoolers use for the title of a history report, and an early sign that they’re going to get a B-. The fact that “Red Sonja” uses this font in its closing credits isn’t itself a problem. But it’s emblematic of the film’s whole vibe.