Conan the Destroyer

I decided it was time to address the “other” Conan movie, (and I suppose I may have to get around to the more recent Jason Momoa version as well) and so I have taken the dive and present here the disappointing follow-up to the defining Conan the Barbarian. Two years after that movie made the Cimmerian a household name, we were presented with 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, which pissed away whatever goodwill the franchise had, and set the stage for its absolute nadir in Red Sonja the following year.

John Milius did not return to direct this one, so Dino De Laurentiis handed it off to Richard Fleischer, who had directed such old-fashioned adventure flicks as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Vikings, so it might seem that he would have the chops for this. However, he did not have the same dedication Mulius did to keeping things violent and grim, and so he went along with De Laurentiis’ desire to tone the movie down and make it more family-friendly. I mean, the original Conan had only made $100+ million against a budget of $16 million, why would you want to replicate that?

The script for this was originally written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, but their draft was heavily revised, and the final script was by Stanley Mann, a studio hack who had worked on such duds as Meteor and The Omen II. Thomas and Conway were so unhappy with the final film they would later adapt their original story for the comics.

You can see the studio hands all over this in the scholcky fantasy-quest storyline and the severely disappointing fight choreography. There’s a lot more pro wrestling in the big, slow, stupid moves than the badass swordplay of the original. Plus, the film has to find excuses for Arnie to flex and lift heavy things, so we don’t forget he’s a bodybuilder. The story steals liberally from some of the original stories like “A Witch Shall Be Born” and “Black Colossus”, as well as the battle with the robed ape from “Rogues in the House”.

In short, Conan gets recruited by Queen Taramis to escort her niece on a stupid quest to get the horn of a statue that is apparently a sleeping god. They have given Conan a wacky sidekick for comic relief, and saddle him with a crew of companions that don’t really add anything – even the great Mako is criminally wasted, being called upon only to point at things and make car noises to indicate he is casting a spell.

The sets and costumes still look pretty fucking good, with the palace of Queen Taramis looking especially cool. The showdown between Conan and Toth-Amon in the chamber of mirrors has bad choreography and terrible editing, but the set looks amazing. The special effects – like the rubber monster face and the giant puppet of the arisen god in the climactic battle – are pretty fucking terrible, and look cheap even by the standards of 1984

The casting is a strange mix of inspired and bewildering. Sara Douglas gets great outfits and is a preening, prowling villain whenever she’s onscreen, which is not nearly enough. Olivia d’Abo – only 14 when this was filmed – is cute as a button and actually manages a little gravitas in a thin role. Grace Jones is. . . Grace Jones. She’s having a good time, and you have to admire how she throws herself into this, but it’s impossible to forget who she is. Casting Wilt Chamberlain was a bad idea, as he’s no kind of actor at all, and next to his seven-foot height, Arnold looks absolutely puny. Tracey Walter as Conan’s wisecracking thief sidekick Malak is just kind of inexplicable. It is nice to see Pat Roach get an actual speaking role, and as a wizard he is cast way against type.

This is not as bad as Red Sonja by any stretch, but it completely bastardizes the grim, violent mood of the original movie, and inserts far too much goofy comedy, complete with anachronistic banter and that embarrassing scene where Conan gets drunk and makes a fool of himself. The pace is glacially slow, and scenes seem to drag on and on – far longer than they need to. Basil Poledouris reprises his music from the original film, but he reworks the familiar themes into lighter, jauntier versions to the point where it almost seems like he is parodying himself. The dialogue is rote and tedious, and nobody here, besides Sara Douglas, is any good, really. The action scenes are bad, and the editing is consistently poor.

This didn’t exactly bomb when it came out, but it made less than a third of the hundred-million-plus gross of its predecessor, and the reviews were pretty bad. The experience soured Schwarzenegger on the Conan character, and since his contract was up with De Laurentiis, he refused to take part in the projected third film. It would be twenty-seven years before another Conan film saw the light of day, and as that was a massive bomb (that I will get to soon) this film can be largely blamed for the failure of Conan to make a comeback to this very day.