140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW
PG-rated sequel isn’t actually as awful as I remember. Scant praise, maybe, but I remember it being truly wretched. It just isn’t any good.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Conan the Destroyer:
Conan was always intended to be a saga, for obvious reasons. The character’s roots were in serial stories that could go on more or less forever and the premise lends itself to multiple sequels. So after the success of Conan the Barbarian, this film was inevitable and so should have been more successful. Sadly, it’s a classic franchise-killer.
Watching it now, on the 30th anniversary of its release, it’s really nowhere near as bad as I remembered it being. It certainly is not a good movie, but it really shouldn’t have stopped the film franchise dead in its tracks. I rather suspect that the bigger reason that no further sequel was forthcoming is that Schwarzenegger was simply too big of a star at this point to waste any more time on it unless it was going to be a guaranteed success. The other reason may have been that 1984 was a banner year for movies and this film looked even worse than it would have next to its peers. Conan the Destroyer was released a week after The Karate Kid, and with that, Ghostbusters & Gremlins still in theaters, why would you go see this?
Plans for Conan the Conqueror as a third picture went straight into development hell as Ahnold became a superstar with The Terminator, released later in 1984. They even recycled the script, turning it into Kull the Conqueror, “starring” Kevin Sorbo. (Kull is apparently another barbarian hero created by Robert E. Howard. No, I didn’t know that, I looked it up. My interest only goes so far.) I am uncomfortably aware that a third film is once again in development, called King Conan or the Legend of Conan, depending on who you listen to. Please stop.
I am also aware that there was one more film to follow this one, Red Sonja, in which Schwarzenegger briefly returns as Conan, but since it is universally regarded as one of the worst films ever made, I’m choosing to ignore it.
So where did they go wrong? Everywhere, really. All of the A-listers involved in the first picture are absent here. New director (Richard Fleischer) & new screenwriter (Stanley Mann), both downgrades, work off of a comic book storyline, which does lead to a very comic book feel, in this instance meaning episodic and without any real weight. The picture simply feels like “the continuing adventures of…” without any importance and with the expectation of another equally bland tale next month. This probably would have made a very good episode of a Conan TV show, such as the Hercules show made in the 90’s with Kevin Sorbo (there’s that name again).
Part of the comic book feel must surely be attributed to the downgrading of the rating from an R to a PG. Maybe if this had been made a few months later when they had created the PG-13 rating we’d be left with something a little less jarring, but in the landscape the movie was made in, if the studio wanted to make bank, they needed to tone down the violence to get the PG. Less violence wouldn’t necessarily have been a deal-killer, since this was the 80’s and PG films still contained quite a bit of content that wouldn’t fly today. No, the problem is the other thing studios do to make a picture more family-friendly – add “humor”. Humor in this case usually means comic relief characters, and this is no exception here, with the inclusion of Tracey Walter as cringe-inducing Malak. Walter plays him as if it were a character from another movie in another country that had been surgically introduced here and voiced by someone who didn’t understand the language.
The acting is terrible across the board, really. Olivia d’Abo plays Princess Jehnna but reminds you more of Willie Scott, the shrieking damsel from Temple of Doom (also still in theaters at this time). Grace Jones is here to remind you that you are right in the middle of the 80’s. Wilt Chamberlain is in this movie – really. It’s his only film role. See if you can guess why. He’s…well, he’s Wilt Chamberlain, but he has a wig. Sarah Douglas, Ursa from the first two Superman pictures also appears in this movie. That’s about as much as I’m willing to say.
(André “The Giant” Roussimouff makes an uncredited appearance as Dagoth the god/monster thingy, but you won’t recognize him.)
But nothing is so disheartening as Conan himself. He talks more – and that’s bad. Do you know that in the first picture he speaks only five words to his leading lady, all within the first 30 seconds of meeting her? (“You’re not a guard.” and then “No.”) That’s it. Now, he’s not exactly eloquent in this movie, but he’s changed far too much since the first movie and that’s a fatal mistake.
There’s a story here, but I’m not going to bore you with it. It stinks. Give this one a pass and go rewatch the original.
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
Pass, somewhat surprisingly…
The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)
(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)
| Main Cast | Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan, Grace Jones Zula, Olivia d’Abo (as Olivia D’Abo) Princess Jehnna, Wilt Chamberlain Bombaata |
| Rating | PG |
| Release Date | Fri 29 Jun 1984 UTC |
| Director | Richard Fleischer |
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Fantasy |
| Plot | Conan leads a ragtag group of adventurers on a quest for a princess. |
| Poster |  |
| Runtime | 103 |
| Tagline | The most powerful legend of all is back in a new adventure. |
| Writers | Robert E. Howard (character), Roy Thomas (story) … |
| Year | 1984 |
