Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

One of my all time favorites.

Brilliant and touching

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

John Milius's Conan the Barbarian is a gritty visceral epic which kickstarted the "swords and sandals" sub-genre in the early 80s. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in top form in a film that catapulted him into the stratosphere and a year later he would go onto star in the Terminator, cementing his arrival as leading man. Milius is such a good director and it seems war and moral codes are running through his veins. The cinematography is good as is the score and one scene in particular- the kitchen orgy sequence is awe inspiring in its outlandish transpiring. If you like historical epics, then Conan the Barbarian is a great film to wind down with.

It's so ridiculous that it's funny. That's the only reason I gave it 2 stars, because I had a good laugh.

Robert E. Howards' pulp hero got envisioned for the big screen in a majestic way, with this initial starring vehicle for champion weightlifter and future action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger. Its extremely impressive production values, and vivid storytelling, make it absolutely tops for its genre, and indeed superior to many of the imitative sword and sorcery epics that it spawned. Conan is orphaned as a boy when evil cult leader Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) and his minions slaughter the people of Conans' village, including Conans' parents (played by Nadiuska and the legendary movie tough guy William Smith). The film charts Conans' odyssey from young slave to pit fighter to thief to avenging hero, giving him some faithful companions in the form of Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), Subotai (surfer Gerry Lopez), and the Wizard (Mako, who also serves as narrator).With a screenplay credited to director John Milius and Oliver Stone, "Conan the Barbarian" is grand in its scope. Excellent location shooting (entirely in Spain) helps a great deal in creating the atmosphere, along with eye popping production design by Ron Cobb and cinematography by Duke Callaghan. Unlike some of its imitators, "Conan the Barbarian" is definitely a fantasy feature for adults, with a fair amount of female skin bared and some effectively nasty violence. Milius keeps optical effects to a minimum, and employs some enjoyable practically done effects along the way. The action scenes are nicely executed. But soaring above a lot of the other assets is the grandiose score composed by Basil Poledouris. It is simply perfect for the material.Arnold is of course an ideal choice for the title role. His physical prowess, and physique, are on full display. The supporting cast is also up to the task. Jones is a wonderfully odious, yet charismatic, villain. Bergman is not much of an actress, but she too shows off an effective athleticism. Lopez (who is actually dubbed by actor Sab Shimono) is engaging, and Mako a hoot as he so often was. Smith is seen much too briefly, but Max von Sydow makes the most of his limited screen time, relishing a rare opportunity to ham it up. Arnolds' weightlifting associates Franco Columbu & Sven-Ole Thorsen, and football player Ben Davidson, play assorted heavies. Cassandra Gava makes a memorable appearance as a witch. Expatriate actor Jack Taylor, a familiar face to fans of European horror and exploitation, has a cameo as a priest.If one is looking to delve into this genre, they simply can't do better than this.Nine out of 10.

When his family and tribe are killed by an evil sorcerer named Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) young Conan is enslaved by this cult and is trained to become a fierce warrior. When Conan is set free as an adult, he seeks revenge against Doom.Conan the barbarian is another film that I seemed to remember as not being too bad when I watched it a number of years ago when I was a child. I decided to watch it again as an adult and can't decide whether it was a bad film when I watched it (and I'd forgot) or that my opinion on it has changed now that I'm an adult...At its heart this is your typical basic revenge film, but in Conan the barbarian the revenge element seems to take a backseat and for the most part the film is chocked full of weirdness - all the sorcery, wizardry and gods knows what else seems to dominate the film. The odd thing is that the sorcery and wizardry nonsense never seemed to have any connection to the revenge element of the story and at times it felt like I was watching two different films (sadly neither of which was particularly entertaining). For me, the whole film was a bit too whacked out and weird (and sadly not in an enjoyable way). It just felt weird for the sake of being weird in my opinion.Aside from the above other issues with the film are that it is dull and overlong and with next to no character development, little action, and several nonsensical plot elements this is not an easy film to sit through during its 2 hour running time. The voice-over narrative is terrible, rather cheesy and also didn't feel entirely necessary.As far as the performances go then they are pretty much as bad as you'd expect with only James Earl Jones giving a fairly credible performance. Schwarzenegger isn't the greatest of actors and this is something that filmmakers started to learn in his later career; I think that's why a lot of his characters in later films were played in a more tongue-in-cheek fun way as it helped to distract from his weak acting. In Conan the barbarian, the tone is quite dark and the feel is mostly serious and this exposes Arnie's weaknesses as an actor all the more. Like I say, this is something that filmmakers would improve upon with Arnie in time and by the late 80's they'd pretty much perfected the formula.Conan the barbarian is nowhere near as good as I remember it to be and my view on it today is that it's a dull, nonsensical and rather uninteresting affair from start to finish. Had it played out as a more straight-forward revenge film and had it been a bit more fun then I think it would have been far more enjoyable.