Film Review: Conan the Destroyer

Until recently, I’d seen most of the Conan films. I’d rented Arnold’s first film on disc, and the same with the film with Jason Momoa taking the role. However, while I’d seen bits and pieces of Conan the Destroyer on cable, I’d never really seen the film. I figured now was as good a time as any to get to Arnold’s final outing as the sword-swinging Comparison.

Conan the Destroyer is the film in the series that seems both the least like Conan in the stories, and the most like a D&D party. It starts off with Conan in a buddy relationship with a thief, Malak (Tracey Walter), and leads to the two of them getting persuaded into escorting a princess, Jehenna (Olivia d’Abo), on a quest by her sorceress Aunt, Queen Taramis, to retrieve a magical relic. If they succeed, then the Aunt will bring Valeria back from the dead. Conan agrees, and along with the princess’s bodyguard, Bombatta (Wilt Chamberlain), gets together a team of a wizard, Akiro (Mako), and another warrior, Zula (Grace Jones), to complete the quest.

Now, if you have any familiarity with Conan as a character, Conan saying yes should immediately lead to a flag on the play. Even with Conan having some wizards in his supporting cast who he’s okay with, anyone involved in raising the dead (especially those who have been dead for a while) has generally been an enemy (if the act of necromancy hasn’t backfired spectacularly and catastrophically). So, Conan saying yes is a bit out there.

So, if you take this instead as a D&D party with 3 fighters, 1 thief, and a wizard, things work much better. The cast actually clicks fairly well, even if some of them don’t necessarily get a lot to work with. At this point in Arnold’s career, his English was better than it was in the first film, and the script does slip some banter in there, but the rest of the cast doesn’t have much. They throw a few barbs at each other, but honestly, this film kinda needed a few more quips. I’m not asking for the kind of banter we got 30 years before this film (or 30 years later), but having more time for these characters to bounce off each other and share more interiority would be nice.

That said, there are still some good performances. In particular, while Bombatta, as a character, has “This character is going to betray the party in the third act” written all over him, Chamberlain’s performance is restrained enough that it falls out of your mind – his focus is on the princess. Grace Jones’s performance is kind of limited to “Big but not talkative” – like Arnold’s in the first film, but without the excuse of the lack of English fluency – but she’s entertaining, with some great reactions.

Also, the film isn’t helped by going for a PG (what would now be a PG-13 rating) for a larger box office. My general vibe about violence and nudity in film is that it should fit the material. Conan, as a character who lives in a swords and sorcery world where people do heroic acts, but death can come quickly, and magic is permeated with horror. Nudity and sex are present, and if you’re using it in a non-misogynist way, it’s because the characters involved are ones who are, at least now, living life largely because they anticipate their end will be messy, even if they aren’t seeking death on purpose. It’s if they live long enough to find a longer-term goal that they change how they’re living and show a little more restraint (like when Conan becomes King of Aquelonia). Having some more violence (particularly some over-the-top amputations and campy blood spray) and nudity plays with that.

I enjoyed seeing the movie, but I absolutely get why this didn’t get the level of traction the first film had. If this film does ever get a permanent place in my collection, it’ll be because it was in a two-pack with the first film.

Conan The Destroyer is Streaming on: