Conan, o Destruidor

I have been captivated by Conan's heroic fantasy world for many years. For this reason alone I am rating this film as 6/10. Do not expect a continuation of the first Conan film. 'Conan The Destroyer' is too light in its scope and Conan is not the same man anymore. The villains are also not as menacing.

Having said that it was good to see Grace Jones and Sarah Douglas and also Conan's companions had good lines and were very funny at times.

As a side note I found the adjective 'Destroyer' in the title quite misleading and unfortunate. For those of us that read the Conan novels we see Conan driven by his own motivations, and fighting his battles only if he had to and not for the sake of destroying. The film distributors could have picked something else to promote the movie.

Boy, did this one take a wrong turn at Albuquerque! Although it's still pretty entertaining, it's played far too much for laughs.

Ahnuld is back, and this time he gets more dialogue, a big mistake. He sounds more than a little ridiculous with a large part of his dialogue. Instead of Gerry Lopez, we have Tracy Walter, a fine actor, but too comedic for this (yeah, he's the comic relief, but Conan shouldn't have comic relief). Mako is good and Sarah Douglas sizzles as always. Grace Jones, well, is Grace Jones. If you are looking for subtlety, look elsewhere. And, speaking of subtlety, there's "Wilt, the Stilt." As an actor, Wilt makes a great basketball player. Olivia D'Abo is cute, but little else.

The movie has its moments and the finale is pretty good, but there's a lot of junk in the middle. The fight between Conan and Toth-Amon (Pat "Bomber" Roach) is fantastic, but the campfire scenes after are just plain stupid. Tracy Walter's character gets annoying with the constant Shaggy and Scooby jokes (you know, "I'll wait here. Wait for me!"). The basic story is good and in keeping with Conan traditions, but it descends into camp at the worst times.

Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway were quite familiar with Conan, having written the character for Marvel Comics. How much of their story is in the final film is a puzzler. The elements that work are straight out of Howard and Roy Thomas' comics. The goofier stuff, who knows?

The first film was epic adventure. This is more of a glorified B-movie. It's fun when you have a group of friends together and can "MST3K" it; but as cinema, it's not 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Director Richard Fleischer has done better. Still, it's a great "guilty pleasure" film.

If you're looking for a deep, interesting and layered fantasy flick which makes sense and has an original story, go rent out the first Conan movie. Conan the Destroyer is pure Hollywood cheese, made because the Conan the Barbarian was such a hit. The studio execs made the story more light-hearted, with sidekicks and magic and the kind of story a thirteen-year-old could watch without getting in trouble.

Oddly enough, it works. While it's light years away from Robert E Howard's original Conan stories, Conan the Destroyer is still great fun, even twenty years after it was made. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes the most of the very silly lines he's given, Tracey Walter proves a capable if somewhat pointless comic foil, and the irony of casting Wilt Chamberlain as a protector of a young princess' virginity is hilarious.

Mako hams it up, Grace Jones takes it all too seriously and Olivia D'Abo makes for a good childlike princess because she was 16 when the film got made. The music's over-dramatic, the lines are laughable ("Some wizard you are! Go back to juggling apples!") and the story's cliché, but for Saturday night viewing, nothing beats Conan the Destroyer.

Possibly Interesting Trivia: This movie was produced by Raffaela De Laurentis, daughter of the famous Dino De Laurentis. She also produced the confusing big-budget epic "Dune". Both Dune and this movie flopped at the box office, and both were filmed in Mexico.

While the original 'Conan the Barbarian' was more dramatic, the sequel is played more for laughs. Nonetheless, it is still a highly entertaining sword and sorcery fantasy flick. The music is again outstanding and carries the movie where the dialogue fails. Of particular note is Wilt Chamberlain's impressive performance as the immense Bombatta. He has a tremendous screen presence, more than just his stature (plus he had to do his own stunts!).

There are lots of memorable scenes throughout the movie. Not a cerebral film, just good old-fashioned fantasy!

Oh, I can understand why "Conan the Destroyer" is the way it is. The original, classic "Conan the Barbarian" was a hit, but the Hollywood bigwigs decided they could get x-amount more money if they made a more family-friendly sequel, thereby opening the franchise to the lucrative kid's market (never mind that, for as long as there have been "restrictive" movie ratings, kids have known how to get to see the movies they want). Take out the sex, tone down the violence, crank up the humor, and... out comes this movie.

It's like "Destroyer" is stuck in a state of half-development. The basic storyline would be okay, but the script gives Conan a coterie of unneccessary sidekicks (as if Conan were not a strong enough character to carry a movie by himself). Grace Jones is interesting to look at but gets tiresome VERY fast; the cowardly sidekick gets more irritating by the second; Mako wears this expression like he's only in this one for the money. Olivia d'Abo is just plain miscast: it's like she's a marker that should read "Insert More Interesting Character in Second Draft." Arnold Schwarzenegger does a competent job as Conan, but we don't see the raw power and brute force of the first movie. There is a thin line between competence and complacency, between an actor and a star; it took Roger Moore six years to get to that point in the James Bond series, while Schwarzenegger reaches the same point with Conan in two.

I think part of the problem is whether or not the Conan concept is flexible enough to become family fare, and my answer is "no." Fans of Robert E. Howard's Conan work know his Cimmerian is a very rough-edged hero, a cunning, hard-drinking, hard-fighting man, and the first Conan movie captured that essence. To change him into the simple-minded do-gooder of "Conan the Destroyer" is to destroy what Conan is all about, and the movie suffers for it.

Is "Conan the Destroyer" worth watching? Yes. For someone who knows absolutely nothing about Conan, I suppose it can be a harmless sword-and-sorcery popcorn flick. For Conan fans, it's kind of like "Legend of the Lone Ranger" for Lone Ranger fans: an irresistible example of just how badly Hollywood can treat your favorite character.

I just hope that if there is ever another Conan movie (not likely, thanks to "Destroyer"), the producers will concentrate on following the style of "Conan the Barbarian" and just ignore this one.