Conan The Barbarian

I was interested in finally watching this film for two reasons. One, its the film that thrust the former governor of california (Gray Davis) into National Prominence. Two, there's a certain group of film geeks thats always insisting its one of the classics. Combined with the fact that it also stars James Earl Jones, is directed by John Milius, and written by Oliver Stone meant that I definitely wondered if this was secretly a great film hidden by a less than thrilling title (sort of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer being one of the great television dramas of the last twenty years).

Well its definitely not a classic, and in a lot of ways its actually pretty bad. The acting is pretty much universally awful (with the exception of James Earl Jones a brief Max Van Sydow appearance, who appear to be the only characters with a pulse) and the line readings are so flat its almost as if the actors are using all their faculties to just remember was the next word is. That being the case its probably a good thing that there is remarkably little dialougue, just long stretches of pointing and grunting (as well as some of the worst voice over narration I've ever heard). And look, I actually enjoy Arnold most of the time, but he spends all of this film either looking lost, or like he's nannete the gorilla. Not an auspicious film debut, but at least he had the roids going.

All that said the film features stuff like Conan punching a camel out, biting the jugular of a buzzard whose feeding on him while he's crucified to a tree, and casually bedding some woman who turns out to be possessed in order to get directions (he just shrugs it off and goes to sleep when she turns into a ball of fire and flies off). Also the score is more interesting, and generally much more understated, than you would expect from an ostensible sword and sandals epic. As a result its difficult for me to completely dismiss Conan, but I can't really recommend it either. Rather than embracing its pulpy nature, the film tries too hard to be serious and intense, but ultimately just doesn't have the actors to pull it off.