Kull le Conquérant

First the good news. This picture has production design worthy of Conan creator Robert E. Howard's legacy. Everything else is bad news. The script is allegedly a many version hand-me-down re-working of the never made third Conan movie, the film in which Conan would finally win the throne of Aquilonia. Instead we get Howard's backup hero (Kull) who takes the throne at the beginning of the film in an un-stirring, non-epic little battle and then loses it quickly to Witch Demon Akivasha (played to the hilt by Tia Carrere who obviously had rare fun as a bad girl). Kull then kills an hour on a very routine quest-to-find-his-right-to-rule and finally returns for the classic Howard showdown between good brawn and evil sorcery. The main problem is Kevin Sorbo, who got so good at playing Hercules in self-spoofing post-modern fashion that he simply doesn't resonate with the necessary authentic bronze age thuggishness of a Howard hero. Here was a chance to play a variation on his usual screen self and he punted it. Too bad. The set decorators captured the proper essence of Robert Howard...

Is the film any good? No. Is the film at least fun? Yes. I agree the film does not take itself seriously. It's one of those lazy afternoon films when there's not a lot on and you simply want to rest watching a silly film - but you'd have to like sword and sorcery films to even begin to enjoy this movie.

Acting is mediocre at best. Costumes, sets and creatures are cool enough. Lame story but somehow fun enough to keep me a bit interested. I can easily watch this film and let my mind wonder off without missing much of anything.

Some funny scenes - I like the farting camel. LOL.

The Conan films are better but this one but this one is alright enough for something different in the barbarian category.

5.5/10

Former slave and pirate, Kull is now a great warrior but can't seem to fit in with the army because he is one of the few who does not have noble blood. When he stands up to the King for slaying his relatives, Kull is forced to fight and kill him and, as a result, the King sees the light and passes the crown to Kull seconds before dying. The Princes don't like it and the court officials are pretty unimpressed but the law is the law and whatcha gonna do? When he starts to free slaves, treat lesser as equals and generally be a nice king, the Princes plot his removal but when assassins fail they go to a wizard to breathe life into a demon in a ginger wig in the form of a gorgeous woman.

I must admit that, when I recorded this I thought that it was Krull from 1983 simply because I had misread the television guide. Never having bothered with Xena, Hercules or any of these modern swords and sorcery television series and movies that tend to clutter some cable stations in the UK because they all seemed of very low quality to me, but I still decided to watch this anyway. Perhaps it is because the lack of development and character isn't a major problem for me over 90 minutes whereas it is over a 22 week long series but I actually did enjoy this even if it just plays like an extended version of one of these shows – all rock music and modern humour.

The plot is very simple but is enough to allow for the basic fighting and swaggering that the audience would demand. It isn't that well written of course and simply has lots of mystical nonsense in the place of narrative while the characters could only be more one-dimensional if they had been painted onto a wall. Likewise the cast don't do a great deal but at least they seem to be having fun and at least not take it too seriously. Although I'm not about to claim he is anything other than a muscle-bound cable television actor, I was quite won over by Sorbo's charisma and good humour – he makes a good lead for stuff at this sort of level. Despite being stuck in a silly red wig that does nothing for her looks, Carrere enjoys overacting in a vampy role which is good even if she has little screen time. Lombard has a plainer, less fun role but I did enjoy her and she worked well with Sorbo. The princes are quite fun, in particular Griffith and, as always, Fierstein camps in up in the way only he can. None of them are great but at least they make the film seem like a bit more fun.

Overall this is not the film to come to if you don't like the genre or have standards higher that daytime television (Hercules is now a kids TV filler on channel 5 here) but if you like that sort of thing then this does just about enough to be an entertaining little bit of modern sword and sorcery in the mould of, well, everything else Sorbo has been in!

"Kull The Conqueror" is cinematic cheese, and knows it. The actors know it. The director knows it. Certainly the person responsible for the inclusion of the constant heavy metal guitar solos know it! Which is the best part of the film, the constant screams "waaaa-wa-wa-wa-wa!!!" of that heavy metal guitar, briefly punctuated by your standard grade-Z fantasy film dialogue. I laughed my arse off throughout the entire film and had a great time. Anyone who takes this film, or themselves, too seriously, will hate it. Anyone who knows how to kick back and enjoy fluff, will have a grand old time.

The screenplay writer must have read Howard's book, since there are literal quotes like `By this axe I rule!', which Kull exclaims during the coronation, yet again, this movie is no serious attempt to capture the raw, barbarian spirit of Howard's heroes. `Kull the Conqueror' reminds me of `Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger' rather than `Conan the Barbarian' or `Hercules'. Exactly like Patrick Wayne, Kevin Sorbo has to sail to the Land of Ice to find a solution to his problem: the evil witch threatening the once peaceful kingdom. `Kull' is nice, colourful adventure, Sinbad with more muscles and less charm, nothing special, but not as bad as some reviewers wrote, either. I'll watch it again on a rainy day. Of course, if you expected another `Conan the Barbarian', you'll be disappointed, but `Conan the Destroyer' and `Red Sonja' were no match for this masterpiece in the past, and `Kull' is at least a bit better than these two.

Tia Carrere as the red-haired witch Akivasha who cannot be killed, for she is living in a fire, is brilliant. Her immediate transition from the enchanting beauty to screaming rage compares to nothing. I still didn't figure out why Sorbo chose the same profession as De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, but he's passable here. Give it a try if you like the genre.