Review: Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Evil cult leader Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) raids a village, killing most, and enslaving the rest. One of the slaves is a young boy named Conan (played as an adult by Arnold Schwarzenegger), whose father (William Smith) was one of many killed (along with his mother). Subjected to slave labour, Conan is then sold to a man who trains him to fight as a gladiator, but also trained to read and think. Eventually Conan is freed from slave labour (the kind that surely only breeds muscle-bound warriors able to kick your arse), and now travelling with comrades Subotai (Gerry Lopez), Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) and sorcerer Akiro (Mako) he is asked by King Osric (Max von Sydow) to rescue his daughter from the clutches of Thulsa Doom and his crazed cult. Conan gets set to fulfil his quest for revenge for the murder of his parents.

Directed by uber-macho John Milius (“Dillinger”, “Red Dawn”) in 1982, this sword-and-sorcery outing was the big break for Austrian bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is also considered the pinnacle of an often maligned genre of mostly fairly cheap knockoffs made in this film’s wake. Personally, whilst I believe that this is indeed one of the grander, more seriously-minded, and mature offerings in the genre, it’s almost no fun at all. I can admire aspects to it, but failed to get much entertainment value from it. Frankly, I prefer “The Beastmaster”. It might be cheap and silly, but at least it’s entertaining. Hell, even “Conan the Destroyer” is more entertaining, dopey as it is.

Although this film is certainly muscular, it’s also dour and seriously sluggish. There’s just no thrust or drive to it. The weird thing is that as slow as it is, there’s not much dialogue or character depth. Which brings me to the central problem of the film: Conan himself. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the perfect choice to play this character as written, and indeed has an unbeatable physical presence about him. Unfortunately, having a barbarian for a lead character is counter-productive to audience investment and overall entertainment value (unless you’re talking about “He-Man”, in which case it works so long as you don’t hire a Swedish robot to play the part). Obviously the film was a big success, so this is just my opinion, but I found it really hard to get over the fact that Conan is a single-minded and uninteresting character by nature. He also seriously needed a sense of humour.

It’s still somewhat watchable, but really only because I’m a fan of the fantasy genre in general. The narration by Mako helps a bit in filling some gaps, but I prefer my sword and sorcery heroes to be less monosyllabic. The inconsistent narration and lack of dialogue really did see my interest come and go. Arnold really only gets one good line in the entire film, and it’s the one we all know by heart: ‘To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!’. But even that shows just how unsuitable the thuggish Conan is as a heroic lead. He’s a barbarian, and barbarians are unpleasant, uninteresting people. It’s a big problem and I never quite got past it, despite fine support from Mako, Sandahl Bergman, Max von Sydow, and a cast-against-type William Smith as Conan’s father (Smith was apparently one of the actors considered for the title role- along with Sly Stallone and even more ludicrously Charles Bronson!). Bergman, in particular, is a lot more fun to have around than dour Conan, even if I felt her presence in the film came from out of nowhere. She’s also a good physical match for Arnie’s Conan. Max von Sydow doesn’t get much screen time, but is clearly having the time of his life hamming it up and he walks off with the film. That isn’t much of a surprise given that in his short amount of time, he probably is afforded more dialogue than anyone else in the film. His presence really does make one realise the film could’ve used a Brian Blessed or John Rhys-Davies to help liven it up. Mako and von Sydow can’t do all the heavy-lifting (Hey, isn’t Arnold a former Mr. Universe?...). At one point, Mako tells us that Conan is an educated man, but we get zero sense of it and I didn’t buy it for a second. I see that as less a fault in Schwarzenegger’s performance as a deficiency in the screenplay by Milius and Oliver Stone (who went on to direct “Platoon” and “Born on the 4^th of July”). Then again, Mako’s also narrating the first half of the film despite not actually turning up onscreen until the second half, so maybe he’s just a lying arsehole. How can he narrate events he was not witness to? I doubt Conan was spilling the beans. When he does turn up he’s hammy as hell and all the more entertaining for it. The weakest performance comes from the chief villain, played by the usually outstanding James Earl Jones. Although Thulsa Doom is one of the coolest bad guy names in cinematic history, Jones is barely used in the film, and when he does appear, he’s not especially impressive. He seems to have come from the Gene Simmons School of Glowering Menacingly...and not much else. He’s done good work before and since but there’s a reason why he’s so well-known for his voice. He’s authoritative here, but not menacing or evil enough. Odd as it may seem, he’s miscast, and looks ridiculous with long hair. So with the hero uninteresting and the villain not evil enough, you can see how this film didn’t work as well for me as it should have, when combined with the other flaws. Oh, and look for Arnie’s buddy Sven-Ole Thorsen as one of Thulsa Doom’s cronies, who all look like a second-rate, vaguely Nordic heavy metal band. They could even be called Thulsa Doom, come to think of it.

Without question this is a good-looking film (even the cheesy giant snake isn’t the cheapest-looking prop I’ve ever seen), but it’s biggest asset is an aural one. The music score by Basil Poledouris (“Robocop”, “Starship Troopers”) is quite simply one of the greatest music scores of all-time. It’s thunderous and sweeping at the same time, and gives the film a boost of energy and excitement it otherwise lacks. John Milius is clearly one of the manliest men to have ever manned a man, but Poledouris’ work is even more masculine, muscular, and authoritative than anything else in the film. By the way, does anyone see the faint whiff of ‘Mad’ Mel Gibson in Milius’ dark, gloomy, and violent vision here? I must admit, the thought did cross my mind, especially towards the end. Also puzzling me was the appearance of the Tree of Woe. When I saw that, all I could think was ‘Shouldn’t that guy be hanging upside down, if it’s the Tree of Woe’? Thank you to the two of you who get that joke. The final quarter  is the kind of ridiculous, over-the-top entertainment that the rest of the film should’ve been. Sadly, it’s too late.

This is a slow but pretty well-made film that I just didn’t give much of a damn about. There’s not much evidence of true heroism, adventure, or fun.

Rating: C+