Skip to main content

Conan The Destroyer -- a review


Released two years after Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer was the first and only sequel starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular warrior. John Milius, who wrote and directed the first Conan movie, wasn’t available to helm the sequel due to prior commitments. Milius recommended veteran film director Richard Fleischer for the job. Fleischer helmed The Vikings (which was a film that Milius enjoyed and mainly why he recommended Fleischer for Conan II), as well as the Walt Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Soylent Green, among many others. Fleischer would also direct Schwarzenegger once again in Red Sonja (released the following year), starring Brigitte Nielsen in the lead role.

Conan the Barbarian made a ton of money back in 1982 even with an R rating. Both Schwarzenegger and Fleischer had initially expected Conan the Destroyer to also be R rated--until Universal, the studio that released the Conan movies, informed them that Destroyer must have a milder PG rating. This cut back on the gore and blood-splattering action that the first Conan film had, and reduced Destroyer to being more childish overall (although the first film had its share of silly moments). While it also had its share of dopey scenes, Barbarian was still closer in tone to the original Conan stories that were written by Robert E. Howard.



When Destroyer begins, Conan is still pining for his lost love Valeria (played by Sandahl Bergman in the first film) when he and his sidekick Malak (the always good Tracey Walter) are waylaid by a group of soldiers led by Bombatta (basketball star Wilt Chamberlain, in his first film role), who winds up escorting Conan and Malak to see Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas). Taramis is a sorceress who promises to revive the dead Valeria for Conan, provided he first helps her niece, young Princess Jehnna (Olivia d’Abo) to complete a dangerous quest.

As a standard fantasy film, Destroyer holds up pretty well, despite its lighter, kid-friendly tone and plenty of cheesy moments. Richard Fleischer was a master craftsman who knew how to make an entertaining film. And one thing that Destroyer has going for it is its lavish production values. Shot in Mexico, Destroyer has some pretty impressive and imaginative sets, which helps to plunk the viewer right in the middle of this fantastical world. However, its special effects--mostly the optical effects--look extremely dated, especially during a sequence where Conan battles a sorcerer who lives within a series of mirrors in a castle.



But the practical, on-set effects--like the make up--still hold up, with the most impressive being the demonic Dagoth creature that appears in the climax. Professional wrestler Andre the Giant played this hulking creature under a ton of make up, although he was not given screen credit. The climatic scene with the Dagoth is the closest that Destroyer gets to all-out horror, and it's very effective. The off-beat casting also works in the film’s favor, which features force-of-nature Grace Jones as warrior woman Zula, along with Mako, who reprises his role of Akiro the wizard (as well as the film's narrator) from the first Conan film.



Re-watching the film thirty five years after its release, I’m struck at how simplistic and straight-forward it comes off as being. Released in an era long before Game of Thrones or the cinematic Lord of the Rings, Destroyer lacks the sophistication of those two fantasy entities, and has its fair share of goofy moments, seemingly aiming its story for the lowest common denominator. But, as long as they know that it's just a light-hearted fantasy movie, Conan the Destroyer should be enjoyable for fans of the genre looking for a good laugh (whether it's intentional or not). --SF


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Explorer From Another World

It’s Friday night during the summer in Beutter county, an idyllic farming community in Indiana, and the good folks are settling in for what should be another humdinger of an evening. Until their plans are shattered by the arrival of an Explorer From Another World! This turns out to be an alien (Gemma Sterling) who starts savagely killing people from the moment it disembarks from its flying saucer. Local kids Eddie (Colin McCorquodale), Marybeth (Sage Marchand) and Culpepper (Nolan Gay) are planning on seeing a movie, but it looks like they’ll be battling for the very survival of the human race instead! Explorer From Another World is a wonderfully done throwback to the B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Ably directed by Woody Edwards (who gives himself a small cameo as Hank in the sheriff’s jail cell), the film is forty five minutes long, but manages to tell its torrid but funny story very effectively in the time allotted. And the short running time tracks when you...
Post a Comment
Read more

Logan's Run -- a review

I first saw Logan’s Run in a New Jersey movie theater fifty years ago, when I was a boy. The theater, somewhere in the suburban wilds of the Garden State, was packed to the gills with people. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the movie back then—all I cared about that it was a brand new science fiction film, in an age when big budget SF properties on both TV and the big screen was very rare (of course, Star Wars , which would be released the very next year, would change all of that). Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, Logan’s Run is a futuristic tale about a man named Logan 5 (Michael York) who has a special job in a place filled with hedonistic leisure. Logan lives within the splendor of a Utopian society whose population dwells within large domes. The interior is presented as a vast, upscale shopping mall where its citizens want for nothing. Every need, every whim, and every fantasy is met. Of course, there’s a catc...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Housemaid

The Housemaid (from 2025—not to be confused with the 2010 film of the same name) is based on the first book in a psychological thriller series by author Freida McFadden. Sydney Sweeney stars as Millie Calloway. a young woman down on her luck who’s struggling after being released on parole from jail. While living in her car, Millie applies for a live-in maid position with a wealthy family, Nina (Amanda Seyfried) & Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) Winchester, and their young daughter, Cecelia (Indiana Elle) and—to her delight—she gets the job. But, of course, once Millie starts working her maid gig, that’s when the real horror show begins. Despite acting like she was in Millie’s corner in the beginning, Nina deliberately creates problems for Millie that make her look bad. It turns out that Nina is a whack-job who’s served time at a mental facility for trying to kill her own daughter when she was a baby, and now Nina’s got Millie in her sights. If The Housemaid sounds like some ...
Post a Comment
Read more