The original Conan the Barbarian is a great film. It's serious and plays magnificently to its strengths and stays well away from its weaknesses. The movie by John Milius translates the grim world of Robert E. Howard very well indeed, giving us a dirty world with people holding on to existence in the face of dark passions which lure them to their doom.
The music of Basil Poledorouis is simply magnificent, my all-time favorite movie score. I had it once upon a time on an album, and listening to it in those halcyon days before the ubiquity of VHS and DVD, I was able to relive the movie very easily.
The story is that of a boy torn from his home, his parents slain, and he transformed into an ultimate warrior, a man living day to day on the spare possibility of revenge. He is slowly changed in the story into a man who can both be loved and love himself, and who can give up his hatred for the sake of those he cares about. He's never any less savage, but in that savagery he finds focus and meaning and not emptiness. The snake cult he battles is nihilism and he nearly becomes them to slay them, but is crucified literally and resurrected by the power of love. A new man, he is now able to see life beyond the measure of what his vengeance will give him.
Heavy stuff for a rock'em sock'em sword and sorcery flick. But it's all there as the boy Conan becomes the man Conan.
But as good as the first Conan movie is, the sequel is weak.
Conan the Destroyer takes all the strengths of the first movie and ignores them, taking a lighter less serious tone to the story. This is adventure, but there's nothing really serious at stake.
At no time is Conan's integrity attacked. He wants to bring his beloved ones back from the grave, but it never really ever forces him to compromise nor does it cost him anything of real value. He leads a band of outcasts to find a jewel to find a relic to raise a god-demon. None of the heroes really have to pay any prices for what befalls them. It's just not compelling.
There's more than a bit of stunt casting in this one too. Grace Jones is entertaining as Zula, a wild warrior woman, but her mannerisms get tiresome quickly. Wilt Chamberlain looks out of place through most of the movie, not really fitting into the world despite his tremendous size and glowering demeanor.
The world is more polished in this one, more Hollywood, and that more than any other thing destroys the illusion that this is a real possibly alternate world of pre-history. This is a movie world, filled with many of the cliches of that world. It's diverting, but never anything more. There are some magnificent landscapes in this one though, that I'll have to admit.
But it gets worse.
The third "Conan" movie is titled Red Sonja and it's pretty much a disaster. Everything that's wrong with the second one is magnified in this third trip to the Hyborian Age. Brigitte Nielson cannot act, or could not when this was made and it really pains the ears. Unlike Arnold in the original Conan, who spoke exceedingly little, Brigitte is forced to talk a lot here and she's just not up to it.
Add to that an annoying boy actor and drones for enemies and the whole shebang comes across as having almost no substance. There's almost no emotion in this one, nothing to connect to. They do though in this movie like to wear funny hats, as almost every character totes some sort of wacky headgear. Ennio Morricone is the composer for this one and while the tunes are interesting, they don't have the depth of his work on the spaghetti westerns.
These three flicks form the trio of movies that Dino DeLaurentis developed from Howard's materials, by way of the comic books of course. It's good they stopped when they did.
The fourth unofficial part of this sequence is Kull the Conqueror starring Kevin Sorbo. This is apparently the third Conan movie which Arnold refused to do. Actually Sorbo as Kull is a better actor, though not as impressive or memorable on screen. He seems to lack that singular sense of otherness that Arnold can deliver, Sorbo's too much of this world.
It's unfortunate that this movie is hampered by its smallish budget and tendency to modernize some aspects of the characterization. It also has a terrible rock and roll score, truly jarring and bad. This could've been a great Conan movie, given the story and some truly serious treatment.
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