In 1982, a movie was supposed to serve as the breakout device for an adventure fiction icon. Instead we got a two-decade pop-culture phenomenon named Ah-nold.
Even though I've come to like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and find things in this, his first big action role, to enjoy, I felt shortchanged then and still do now. A character brimming with intrigue and life like Robert E. Howard's Conan deserved better than a rote tale that highlights the director's fixation with Nietzsche and will-to-power thematics over realizing a compelling alternate world of fantasy and magic.
Something's wrong the moment we meet our main character as played by Schwarzenegger. He's walking around in circles amid a high arid landscape, pushing something called "The Wheel of Pain" that seems to be a mill of some kind but serves no apparent function. He's literally stuck in the middle of nowhere, walking in circles to no apparent purpose.
This continues for much of the film. Picking up bits of stories that would be known to Howard readers in a kind of mash-up form, we see Conan at work as pit warrior, thief, and avenger, the latter being the main business of this film. Years ago, when he was a boy, Conan watched a warlord named Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) ride into Conan's village and kill his parents. After about an hour of grunting, running, and stabbing, Conan discovers a clue as to where this Thulsa Doom might be, and sets out to settle a score.
It's around here that the story, written by director John Milius and Oliver Stone, finds its groove. Jones is a cool villain, the kind who can make one of Milius's philosophical exposition scenes work with a single jab of his finger. Never mind that the guy looks like a Breck girl with his long, straight hair, he's the class of the production.
Schwarzenegger makes an impression, too. First it's his physique, as a lot of labored, stretchy scenes call upon him to do little else but flex his muscles and mutter "Crom!" now and then. But Schwarzenegger's considerable charm and way with a camera come across as the film rolls on. He is not a strong actor here, but from the moment he punches a camel in a crowded street, a kind of gonzo energy works its way into Schwarzenegger's performance, a sense that he's making us laugh on purpose and enjoying it.
As to the rest of the cast, Sandahl Bergman looks good, moves better, but can't deliver a line convincingly as Conan's lover Valeria, while Max Von Sydow overplays a silly scene as a vexed king. Better are Mako as a wily wizard and Gerry Lopez, apparently a full-time surfer from what Milius says on the DVD commentary, who plays the thief Subotai and brings some badly needed charm and sympathy to the proceedings before the Arnold we all know finally shows up.
The film builds to a gripping conclusion, if one borrowed from Milius's "Apocalypse Now" script like other reviewers here have noted. Of course, when the blood flows as thick as it does in the last half-hour of this movie, it's not hard getting and keeping an audience's attention.
As a Conan fan, I would have liked more development of the world Conan lived in and the people around him, if not as conceived by Howard at least re-imagined convincingly by Milius. Here you get some visually arresting sets, a rich Basil Poledouris score, and Arnold in his youthful prime, but none of it really comes together, except a little near the end. It's not a bad film, but it's not a world I want to go back to like I do that of Howard's Conan.
Even though I've come to like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and find things in this, his first big action role, to enjoy, I felt shortchanged then and still do now. A character brimming with intrigue and life like Robert E. Howard's Conan deserved better than a rote tale that highlights the director's fixation with Nietzsche and will-to-power thematics over realizing a compelling alternate world of fantasy and magic.
Something's wrong the moment we meet our main character as played by Schwarzenegger. He's walking around in circles amid a high arid landscape, pushing something called "The Wheel of Pain" that seems to be a mill of some kind but serves no apparent function. He's literally stuck in the middle of nowhere, walking in circles to no apparent purpose.
This continues for much of the film. Picking up bits of stories that would be known to Howard readers in a kind of mash-up form, we see Conan at work as pit warrior, thief, and avenger, the latter being the main business of this film. Years ago, when he was a boy, Conan watched a warlord named Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) ride into Conan's village and kill his parents. After about an hour of grunting, running, and stabbing, Conan discovers a clue as to where this Thulsa Doom might be, and sets out to settle a score.
It's around here that the story, written by director John Milius and Oliver Stone, finds its groove. Jones is a cool villain, the kind who can make one of Milius's philosophical exposition scenes work with a single jab of his finger. Never mind that the guy looks like a Breck girl with his long, straight hair, he's the class of the production.
Schwarzenegger makes an impression, too. First it's his physique, as a lot of labored, stretchy scenes call upon him to do little else but flex his muscles and mutter "Crom!" now and then. But Schwarzenegger's considerable charm and way with a camera come across as the film rolls on. He is not a strong actor here, but from the moment he punches a camel in a crowded street, a kind of gonzo energy works its way into Schwarzenegger's performance, a sense that he's making us laugh on purpose and enjoying it.
As to the rest of the cast, Sandahl Bergman looks good, moves better, but can't deliver a line convincingly as Conan's lover Valeria, while Max Von Sydow overplays a silly scene as a vexed king. Better are Mako as a wily wizard and Gerry Lopez, apparently a full-time surfer from what Milius says on the DVD commentary, who plays the thief Subotai and brings some badly needed charm and sympathy to the proceedings before the Arnold we all know finally shows up.
The film builds to a gripping conclusion, if one borrowed from Milius's "Apocalypse Now" script like other reviewers here have noted. Of course, when the blood flows as thick as it does in the last half-hour of this movie, it's not hard getting and keeping an audience's attention.
As a Conan fan, I would have liked more development of the world Conan lived in and the people around him, if not as conceived by Howard at least re-imagined convincingly by Milius. Here you get some visually arresting sets, a rich Basil Poledouris score, and Arnold in his youthful prime, but none of it really comes together, except a little near the end. It's not a bad film, but it's not a world I want to go back to like I do that of Howard's Conan.