Conan the Destroyer (1984)

Plot Outline: The bold warrior Conan escorts a young princess on a perilous quest to retrieve a rare gemstone from a crystal palace. She has to take it back to the evil Queen who, unknowing to the band of travellers, plans to sacrifice the princess and use the gem to summon an ancient demon.

The Review: This sequel isn't bad but Conan has been watered down from the previous film and he's now more of a comic book hero walking around tacky sets with cheap special effects surrounding him. Gone is the violence and brutality of the original and its replaced with a more comic, seemingly light-hearted tone as if they were making a video game. This really hurts the film because we want to see Conan smashing up enemies and slicing them with his sword for revenge, not simply having to do this and that because it's the plot. Conan is now a dumb brute who just thieves to stay alive as opposed to a warrior who has just come of age to get revenge for his parents death. As I've mentioned, the sets aren't great and the special effects are laughable at best. One of Conan's opponents turns out to be Pat Roach (who usually plays big, muscle men roles in Indiana Jones films) in a monkey mask. They didn't have enough budget to create a suit so they just put him inside a mask! Schwarzenegger tries his best and is perfectly cast as Conan but he can't be to blame for the rest of the casting problems. Olivia d'Abo may look great (and I mean great!) but she was too young for her role as the princess. Grace Jones is just horrendous in whatever film she stars in. She's too much of a man for a female part but she can't be cast in a male part either (because she's clearly not a man either). The simple thing to do is leave her out of films altogether! The film was ok until she showed up and once you get a look at her psychotic, out-of-this-world expressions, the rest of the film isn't the same anymore. Barring the obvious lack of budget, it's hard to see where this fell off the rails so badly. If they've given more time to developing a story instead of putting Conan into some Dungeons and Dragons style quest then the rest of the film would have improved by itself.

Final Verdict: Conan the Destroyer is a harmless sword-and-sorcery film but for people who want their fantasy with a little more oomph, then check out the original. This is just goofy entertainment.

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