Conan the Destroyer
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Movie Reviews of Conan the Destroyer
Movie Review: Not as good as the first
Summary: 4 Stars
Conan the Destroyer picks up where Conan the Barbarian left off at. We are once again with the hero Conan(Arnold Schwarzenegger) and he has a new quest. He is hired by a queen to take a virgin princess to a floating island to retreave a crystal. He is made to believe that the queen can bring back his love Valeria. In reality the queen wants to kill the princes and use the crystal to rule the world.Conan the Destroyer isn't at nearly as violent and bloody as the first. The first movie is a lot more barbaric. The sword play is slower and more brutal. You also don't see a whole lot of magic in the first film. Granted you see some, but not like you see in Destroyer. The sword play isn't nearly as bloody. It's more high paced and you see a bigger variety of weapons in the movie. You also see a diffrent kind of cast.
Mako is the only returning member besides Conan to the movie. He continues his role as the wizard and once again is a comedic charm. Grace Jones as a role as Zulu warrior. She is excellent in the movie. I was surprised to see her in the movie. Wilt Chambelin is also in the movie. He plays a warrior that is suppose kill Conan once the crystal is retreaved. He is in great shape for a 50 something year old man. I was impressed.
I liked Conan the Destroyer. It's PG and is something the whole family can watch. I don't think it's as good as Barbarian, but I do love it. It's a must for Arnold and fantasy fans. Get the DVD and enjoy.
Movie Review: A fun entertaining movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Conan The Destroyer, toned down de violence and the sex of its predecessor, Conan the Barbarian. This sequel features more fantasy oriented action and some fun for younger audiences. Some people may think this is not right, but I think it makes the movie more enjoyable. The feeling of adventure is more fast paced and so its the action you get Arnold Schwarzenegger on the lead role trying to get away with some humor (the scene with a drunken Conan teaching the princess how to fight is hilarious) and some things that maybe purists wouldn't like but after all, Conan wasn't always that dark.Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain (that Will Chamberlain!!!), Olivia D'Abo and Sarah Douglas are among the cast. Somehow it lacks the feeling of the original big cinematic stance but this is more fun to watch.
If you like fantasy adventure movies this one needs to be in your collection.
Movie Review: Conan the Destroyer
Summary: 4 Stars
Conan is sent on a mission by a queen to accompany her princess daughter to a distant castle to retrieve some mysterious and magical gems. Unbeknownst to him, the queen has a plan to double-cross him and use her daughter for a sacrifice upon their return. Conan steps up for battle. This is a pretty entertaining movie, star characters and a twisted plot. I enjoyed it.Movie Review: Arnold is huge monsters evil Wilt and grace jones BAM!!
Summary: 4 Stars
fun movie to watch
perrenial movie fav
arnold still massive huge
evil wizards
monsters
nice!!
Movie Review: There is a streak of talent and imagination in it
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie is not without flaws, to put it mildly, the most glaring of them acting and dialogue. I won't spend any adjectives on those, although even there, completely unexpectedly, pop up curious and not unpleasant moments. Take the "How do you think flowers grow?" one-liner or the brief discussion of whether it was Malek's cousin's sister's brother or his brother's sister's cousin who had dug the escape tunnel out of Queen Taramis' Castle that Conan and the crew use as a side entrance. Both could be developed into something genuinely funny and perhaps even psychologically interesting - Malek, for instance, could have been made into more than the fool he officially becomes at the end - if, that is, the rest of the screenplay lived up to it. But these pretty notes immediately disappear among the actors' broken voices dragging their assigned lines like ski in the summer. The general feeling is that everything in the fridge has gone into this mish-mash, and some good stuff also, but neither the creators nor the audiences took notice.
The movie is visually interesting, too, even after all these years. Here I will, and with great pleasure, contradict previous reviewers who condemned the film's special effects as obsolete: puppets are a separate article from CGI and never ever lose their physical charm. You can poke a finger at the silly ape monster that Conan has to fight in Toth-Amon's castle and there will be plastic and rubber, I imagine, whereas as lively as, say, Gollum or the trolls were in "The Lord of the Rings," nobody could for a moment think they were anything but figments, carved out of nothing, akin more to images on the retina than anything remotely real. You might think that movies, fantasy movies especially, needn't have anything real, but the CGI technology has not yet advanced to the point where it can truly fool the eye, and until it does there will be steady pleasure in puppet work. Moreover, puppets are artworks in themselves, of varied quality: I dare anyone to watch Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" or even his weaker "Dark Crystal" and not be amazed, even today, at the characters that populate them. So much for the aging argument.
That is not to say, of course, that Conan's puppets are uniformly impressive. For the most part they are as underdone as the rest of the movie. As someone else has said, the ape monster's face does not move, plus the actor within the costume obviously knew nothing about wrestling. Dagoth could have used additional mobility and he suffers, as does the rest of the picture, from indifferent camera work. With just a few shots from slightly farther away and from the back or from below it squeezing Conan could have become an unforgettable scene, provided this Carlo Rambaldi had taken care to improve on the model. And on it goes: sloppy writing, the root of all evil, extra-sloppy acting, even sloppy costume work. Why are the guardians of the Horn of Dagoth dressed like the members of a local BDSM club?
But lo, there is an imaginative touch here: the guardians have a leader, a wizard, and he orders them about wordlessly by a sharp clanging-together of his bracers. The idea deserves a respectful nod. And the scene develops into a regrettably brief but exciting battle of sorcery as the leader tries to overpower Akiro, who is Conan's enchanter companion. To come back once more to the ape monster, despite the absurdity of it and the strained acting during the whole Crystal Palace chapter that mows down suspension of disbelief as soon as it sprouts, the episode with Thoth-Amon's (but why the name?) castle on the whole manages to inspire. On-again, off-again: the bird of smoke into which Thoth-Amon transforms and its slow flight over the lake, accompanied as they are by Basil Poledouris' quiet track, are impossible to take one's eyes off, but the bird's claws reaching for the princess are unconvincing and we are never shown her actually getting seized.
So it goes: occassional good ideas and talented presentation nearly drowned out by the boring rest and never explained. These highlights are something to watch out for, and everything else you can ignore, so I will now name a few. Shadizar. The giant bones in the desert. Mako as Akiro the Wizard. Sometimes Olivia d'Abo as Princess Jehna. The villagers attacking Zula and their settlement. Toth-Amon's face, gauntlet and cloak. The bird of smoke and the mirror room fight. The wizard competition and the way the two wizards recognize each other. The marble statue of Dagoth, the slime that runs down its face once the horn is in, Dagoth in his monstrous form. You may find others, but probably not many.
Is the movie worth watching, then? It is, although you will cringe a lot. Is it worth buying? I don't know, but, to speak of filthy lucre, Best Buy sells "Conan: The Complete Quest," which includes both movies, for 15 dollars.