You can tell what kind of film Conan the Destroyer is going to be right from the very start as Mako delivers a slightly reworked version of the saga sell from the first film, only this time with all the passion and commitment of Harrison Ford doing his infamous Blade Runner narration.
This isn't really a sequel, it's a cash-in. Were it not for the fact it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a character called Conan you would easily think it was one of the many cheap and lazy knock-offs that came out following the original film's success, like Deathstalker or The Warrior and the Sorceress. John Milius wasn't available to make another movie (and probably didn't want to work with Dino De Laurentiis again) so he was replaced by Richard Fleischer, a prolific journeyman director known for classic films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Vikings, Fantastic Voyage, and Soylent Green as well as disasters like Doctor Dolittle and Amityville 3-D. Stanley Mann wrote the script based on a story by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, both writers on Marvel's Conan comics.
The powers that be thought that this would be an even bigger hit than the original if it was less violent and more family friendly. They were wrong. It wasn't a flop by any means, thanks to having a lower budget than the original, yet still made less at the global box office and was so bad it killed any motivation Arnold had at the time of ever making another film. He only came back to do Red Sonja, a Conan movie in disguise, because of a contractual obligation and one crafty executive producer.
This is just a very bad movie and there aren't many things I can say about it that are nice, but I'll give it a try all the same. Fleischer's direction is unremarkable, but solid. For all the film's other flaws, this is not one that feels shoddily made from a production standpoint. There's some lovely production design from Pier Luigi Basile. The legendary Jack Cardiff is the DP so it's shot well with some gorgeous scenic shots scattered about.
Unlike the first film, which toned down all the magic and fantasy elements to create a more grounded and sincere setting, this one goes full Dungeons & Dragons (in a bad way) complete with a depressingly by the numbers quest structure. Conan and his companions, a loose association of classic one dimensional genre stereotypes (pampered princess, cowardly sidekick, useless magician, Amazonian warrior, obvious traitor), set out to find a McGuffin so they can find another McGuffin so someone can do a thing. Naturally, this involves visiting various castles and tombs, facing different challenges, solving puzzles, slaying monsters, etc. After seeing the creatures in this film, I honestly take back all my complaints about the giant fake snakes in the first one.
The script makes the fatal mistake of not only giving Arnie more lines and wisecracks to deliver, which are all pretty dire, but also tries to get him to actually emote and talk tearfully about his lost love, which was just so embarrassing to watch I almost felt sorry for poor Arnold. I read a review the other day that complained he was too dead eyed in the first film, but I think that really worked better for the character and the journey he was on, as well as Arnold's limited skill set, than whatever this film was trying to do.
The acting across the board is fairly terrible. Some obviously ended up in this film more for their aura than ability to deliver lines convincingly. Wilt Chamberlain was cast for his imposing height and Grace Jones for her imposing Grace Jones-ness. The film wisely gives both little to say and lets their physicality do all the work. Olivia d'Abo wasn't so lucky. She was given way more dialogue than she could handle. To be fair, she was only 14 and working on her second film, which does make it rather icky that her character was being up as a potential love interest for Conan and gives him a kiss in the end. By far the film's worst offender is Tracey Walter as Malak, Conan's comedy sidekick. He was so bad I spent the entire film wishing something nasty would put him out of my misery. No such luck I'm afraid.
--Many characters seem to pronounce Conan like Cohen.
--The name Queen Taramis and Jehnna's mark come from Robert E. Howard's story 'A Witch Shall be Born'. The mark is something of a continuity problem since it is only briefly visible right after Akiro reads about it in the prophecy, but never appears anywhere else in the film even though it's what indicates that Jehnna is the one to be sacrificed.
--Basil Poledouris returned to compose the score, but mainly just recycles his first one. Even the new stuff sounds like it was leftovers from that score. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it came out he didn't compose a single note of new music for this film.
--Why does Zula have a tail?
--Malik says it was his cousin's sister's brother who escaped. So basically his cousin. Spaceballs really did that joke better.
--There was a originally a sex scene between Conan and Taramis. It was cut to secure a PG rating, but I don't think it would've worked narratively anyway since Conan's whole reason for going on this quest was to reunite with her dead lover.
--Andre the Giant played the Dagoth monster.
--The Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan, who was the writer on the Conan novels at the time, wrote a novelization, but unlike his other Conan stories it isn't currently in print.
--A comic adaptation was published in Marvel Super Special #35 written by Michael Fleisher and with art by regular Conan artist John Buscema. Thomas and Conway were so dissatisfied with what the script did to their story that they reworked it as a graphic novel in 1990 called The Horn of Azoth with art by Mike Docherty.
Jehnna: "I suppose nothing hurts you."
Conan: "Only pain."
Conan: "Crom!"
Jehnna: "Could there ever be anyone else?"
Conan: "Another Queen? Lot on your knife... Uh, not on your life!"
After such a promising start, it's a shame to see the Conan series come to such a sudden and ignoble end.
⭐⭐
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig
I'm certain that I saw this movie but have suppressed any memory of it. The only thing I remember is Grace Jones and her Grace-Jones-ness. :)
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand this review at all. There’s only one Conan film; there have never been any others, by Crom!
ReplyDeleteI vaguely remember this one, although a large part of that is as Billie mentioned, Grace Jones being her usually unusual self. A worse rehash of the original for sure, and even though I've been playing D&D and other TTRPGs since the 80s, I don't want movies to feel this much like a session, a problem with this one that you adroitly pointed out.
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