Review of Conan the Destroyer (1984) by Mikey P — 05 May 2008

Conan still doesn't want to wear pants. The first Conan movie was pretty cheesey, that's obvious, but it worked. This movie gives us another reason to support abortions. Studios don't care about Conan, they care about $$$. While I don't hate them for it, after all it's a business and without profit you can't make movies. The problem I have is when they take something that worked ie. Conan the Barbarian and then change it. If it made money to begin with, and was well liked, then why screw with success? That was the same thing they did with Batman.

So now the last memory we have of Conan is a kill-friendly kids movie. That means little gore, no nudity or sex, and a dumber Conan. Granted the first movie didn't do Conan justice in looks or brains, but this one goes too far. He acts like a brutish lunk-head rather than a cunning warrior. John Milus is gone, as is the incredible harsh score of the original (blame the studios not the composer). We don't even get his sidekick from the first movie, Subotai. Instead we get the painfully bad Malak, who has an unhealthy obsession with swallowing jewels. His crap must be worth a small fortune. With all this absent I ask; How is this still Conan?

The story better be fucking epic.....

We both know it's not...

It all centers around Conan trying to ressurect his dead girlfriend Valeria (speaking of which, where is the Eye of the Serpent?). So an evil Queen offers to bring her back, in exchange for his services. He has to escort Princess Jehnna to get a special gem, then return her to the kingdom. Along the way they meet new friends, evil wizards, magical creatures and betrayal. Problem is that there's not enough of it. Not enough action, too much uneeded humour. Not dark humour, Alvin and the Chipmunks-style crap. Only the last 10 or 15 minutes of the film really felt like Conan. Even though it sucks I give it points for that at least. The suck factor from Red Sonja really elevates this movie into something that's much more respectable. The Princess was kind of smokin too, but I digress.

This is just a poorly slapped together Conan wannabe. It could have been so good to, Conan has an Ocean of interesting and cool ideas to pull from. I guess we will have to wait for the upcoming Red Nails (which better be good, or I swear by Crom I will destroy them with my plastic Atlantean sword, fear me motherfuckers). Maybe we will even get a good live-action film in the future...A man can dream can he not?

On that note all hail Set - (BEST RELIGION EVER!).

Now go away I wanna play Age of Conan.....