Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, and Sarah Douglas
Reviewer: Brett Gallman
Buy Conan the Destroyer at Amazon.com!
"Only pain.”
Reviewer's Rating: **½ (Two and One Half Stars)
Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) returns to escort a young princess (Olivia D’abo) who is in search of a magical gem that will fulfill her destiny; what she doesn’t realize is that said destiny is being manipulated by her treacherous aunt (Sarah Douglas, at the height of her geek movie bad girl powers). Accompanying Conan is one of cinema’s more eclectic casts, which features the likes of pop singer Grace Jones and basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain (who is ironically tasked with preserving the virginity of a white girl--zing!). The ragtag group is certainly a highlight of an otherwise standard sword and sorcery film, which doesn’t feel so much like an epic quest this time around. Instead, the characters have to hack through just as much exposition as they do bodies to move from point A (which has some sort of object that’s needed) to point B (which also has yet another idol). Lacking the lyrical dialogue and visually-driven style of its predecessor, this one lurches along a bit clumsily.
But the swords clash and the heads roll in some inventive sequences, such as a confrontation with a sorcerer inside of a hall of mirrors. I suppose this one does feel like more of a comic book adventure compared to the original film. Conan himself remains rather interesting; I’ve always enjoyed how Arnold managed to make this brute into a sort of gentle giant. There’s a scene in this one where he lets his hair down and becomes Conan the Inebriated, which is a lot of fun. Ultimately, the film does miss the faint grimness that Milius brought to the original, as the violence here is toned down and traded in for a fluffier approach.
That’s no doubt because producer De Laurentiis had his eye on re-branding Conan as family-friendly fare; like the first film, this one ends with the insistence that Conan will become a king with a troubled brow. But once again, that’s a story for another time and one that was never told--the third entry, Conan the Conqueror, never materialized.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES:
No comments:
Post a Comment