Cheap Conan the Destroyer (DVD) (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, Olivia d'Abo) (Richard Fleischer) Price

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Customer Reviews of Conan the Destroyer

Unfortunately, Conan is even saddled with a bigger cast of companians. Mako is back as the wizard, Tracy Walter plays a thief for comic relief, then we have Oliva D'Abo as a Princess, and Wilt Chamberlain and Grace Jones rounding out the cast.

This is some of the worst casting EVER! Jones, Chamberlain and Walter are totally out of place in this movie. Chamberlain is even more wooden than Arnold, Jones basically scowls and growls for 90 minutes and Walter sounds like a hillbilly in ancient times.

The special effects are B movie at it's best. Poorly looking rubber costumes. Conan's nemesis from the books and comics, Thoth Amon comes off as totally pathetic.

It's not all bad. Arnold himself holds things together as best he can and the action scenes are well done. Still, We have yet to see anyone do a REAL good swords and sorcery/fantasy movie(discounting Lord of the Rings, of course).

King Kull with Kevin Sorbo was yet another slap in the face to fans of Robert E. Howard.

Quirky casting decisions quickly sink this "Conan" sequel
The 1982 film "Conan the Barbarian" is the film that gets the credit (or blame) for turning Arnold Schwarzenegger into a movie star, but it should be remembered more as the best Sword & Sorcery film produced to date. The main reasons, besides Schwarzenegger cutting an imposing figure as Conan, flexing his muscles and swinging his big sword, was that director John Milius treated the characters seriously and avoided descending into camp. But for the 1984 sequel "Conan the Destroyer," the key factor seemed to be coming up with casting in a similar vein to the logic that had landed Arnold the role.

The story of "Conan the Destroyer" was by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, a pair of writers for Marvel Comics. Thomas was the writer for Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian," often adapating Robert E. Howard's stories, whether they were originally Conan stories or not. The story is a basic quest story where Conan escorts a virgin princess to bring back a powerful gem from a crystal palace, which will then be returned to a queen (Sarah Douglas), who turns out to be evil and wants to sacrifice the princess so the gem can used to summon an ancient demon, at which point wackiness will ensue.

The problem is not in the story, which certainly allows you to string together a series of Sword & Sorcery adventures, but in the casting. The princess is played by Olivia d'Abo, who simply looks too young (i.e., Conan was forever leaving pregnant princesses behind in his various adventures but there is not chance for that sort of chemistry here). Her body guard, Bombaata, is played by basketball Hall of Famer, Wilt Chamberlain, while Zula, the warrior woman who joins the group is played by Grace Jones, the singer/dancer/model/crazy woman. Comic relif, which was relatively absent in the orignal film, is provided by Tracey Walter as Malak. With such casting the descent into camp becomes inevitable. Besides, there is nothing in this film even close to rivaling Arnold's best moments in the original (especially since the final shot of the old King Conan is recycled from the first film).

Those who have actually read the originally Conan stories will also find it rather distressing that Toth-Amon, the great Stygian wizard who was Conan's biggest enemy in the Howard stories, is reduced to a pit stop on this quest (I remember thinking at the time that this was the equivalent of Darth Vader being one of the guys that got dispatched at the Cantina in "Star Wars"). Thomas and Conway were upset by Stanley Mann's final screenplay, as well as the finished film, and ended up turning their story into the graphic novel "Conan and the Horn of Azoth," with art by Mike Docherty (all the names got changed to avoid any confusion).

Ultimately, "Conan the Destroyer" gets three stars because we round down simply to make sure that it is clear that "Conan the Barbarian" was a better movie. Besides, this 1984 film pretty much killed the franchise, although Milius is apparently preparing a 2005 film "King Conan: Crown of Iron," which there being a lot of speculation as to who will play Conan now that Arnold is Governor of Cal-e-fornia (the hot names are apparently all wrestlers).

Awful movie. I wish I could forget it
The masterul epic quality of "Conan the Barbarian" demanded an epic sequel. Instead, what we were given was a parody.

In the first movie Conan's character was well developed, you saw what happened to him over the course of his life, what created him, and what his motivations were.

In this movie, Conan is reduced to a bodybuilder in a fur diaper.

Conan's companions in the first movie were formidible accomplices who Conan respected. In this movie, Conan's companions, especially the annoyingly sniveling cretin Malak, (played by Tracey Walter) have no redeeming qualities at all. I kept hoping Conan would impale him and put us out of our misery. I was constantly lead to wonder "Why is Conan hanging around with this guy?"

Sandahl Bergman in the original movie was a Valkyrie. She was amazingly beautiful, but also amazingly powerful and dangerous.

In the second movie we were given Grace Jones. Please. Not only is she unattractive, her character was essentially unbelievable, crude and repulsive. The notion that she could portray any kind of a warrior was laughable.

The villains in the first movie are fearful. James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom, Sven Ole Thorsen as Thorgrim and Ben Davidson as Rexor come across as men who could perhaps beat Conan. It made the outcome uncertain and Conan's eventual victory that much more powerful.

In this movie the villain is a guy in a monster suit, and a rhino horn with poorly done special effects. It is so ridiculously, lame that Conan must drop his sword and arm wrestle the monster for a fair fight. Wilt Chamberlain, while a creditable athlete, simply did not have the screen prescence necessary. One look at him and it was obvious that Conan could take him. Chamberlain didn't do the role justice.

In the first movie, magic was just that. Magic. It was dangerous, expensive in terms of life and used only in dire circumstances. In this movie magic is reduced to the level of a bad "Dungeons and Dragons" game. I halfway expected The wizard (Mako) to pull out some oddly shaped dice and roll them in his battle with the Man Ape/Toth-Amon.

In the original movie, Conan ponders The riddle of steel, he's a thinker and a man of action. He speaks little. In this movie, talks toomuch, Conan rescues a blonde girl and is betrayed by the evil stepmother. It was a variation of Snow White, Cimmerian style. At least there weren't seven dwarves.

Finally, Conan movies should be R rated. The world of Conan is violent, brutal, lusty and grim. Solutuions ot problems are found with the edge of a blade, not with talk. This watered-down milquetoast version of a Conan adventure was designed to pander to a family friendly audience and D&D geeks. There's plenty of family entertainment out there, and to bring adapt Conan to that environment is wrong.

It's too bad that John Milius was not in charge of this movie. The suits in Hollywood had their way and this movie stinks as a result. The fans lost, because instead three movies we only get one good one, one bad one, and if a third is ever made, it likely won't star Arnold in the title role. What a missed opportunity. It could have been SO much better.

If you like the Conan stories, ignore this film, and stick to the one and only Conan movie.