Conan the Barbarian (1982)

This is one of my Top 5 favorite films of all time. This isn't your typical hack and slash blood-fest like the film industry has become saturated with in present times. I remember seeing this in the theater with my dad when I was 11 and I was blown away. Conan the Barbarian is action, romance, drama and just plain fun. Excellent screenplay, sets, design and costume all around. And the film's score, from the late great Basil Poledouris, really puts the icing on the cake and makes this film truly memorable. I won't even speak of the remake of this classic piece, other than the fact that I made it about half way through before I turned it off. I LOVE THIS FILM!!!

Fmovies: Fantasy films are rarely bold in spirit. Most of them offer colorful, vivid spectacles in wonderful places, but when drawing on ancient myth and legend, very few truly recognize that our history is full of darkness and savagery. In the 1930s, Robert E. Howard created a legend of his own, channeling all the primal brutality and bloodshed of the ancient times into one savage hero: Conan, the Cimmerian who would become a warrior, a pirate, a conqueror, and eventually a king. Conan's adventures in literature took him across all corners of the ancient Earth, to battle countless enemies, vicious monsters, and the darkest magic. Films with this same rawness seem to only come once in a great while.

1982's cinematic debut of Conan is a welcome break from the typical sugar-coated fantasy fare; the film doesn't hold back on showing brutal warfare, liberal bloodshed, rampant sex, and savage landscapes. Right from the beginning, the savagery is palpable. At the same time, the film is not all that trashy about it; is uses only as much blood and gore as it needs to to tell the story. Using only a light amount of excess, the film progresses through a lengthy adventure full of cool battles and memorable scenes, with the right pacing and an appropriate tone that's not too bleak but not too lightweight. As it is, this incarnation of Conan is fun and awesome to watch, and even after a sequel, remake, and video game, it hasn't been matched since.

The original stories can get a bit derivative: Conan usually appears somewhere to slay some bad guys, get the girl, get the treasure, defeat evil, blah blah blah. This film ventures into the same formulaic territory, but before doing so, it lays the groundwork by chronicling Conan's origins, in a tragic opening sequence that's so fundamental in nature that it's been seen before. From then on, the film maintains a solid pathos that allows us to follow and root for Conan on his sprawling quest of vengeance. Conan is a fundamental hero to the core, and the film expresses all his characteristics - his strength, his beliefs, his motivations - aptly. The side characters he picks up are lovable, and their enemies are bad guys we love to hate. The plot is pieced together using some scenes inspired by the original stories, but it all flows really well, thanks mostly to the characters and their chemistry. It's all set in a world that looks primal, but not quite as dark or magical as the original stories.

This film boasts some good-looking photography. It can be pretty murky and drab at times, but the camera angles are great and the imagery overall is solid. Editing has a few weak parts, but is still mostly good. Acting can be a bit silly, but Arnold Schwarzenegger fits Conan both in body and spirit. I love Sandahl Bergman's performance as Valeria. James Earl Jones is literally hypnotic as the main villain, and everybody else does okay. Writing has a few weak spots, but there are still quite a few good lines. This production uses some limited, but very real-looking and detailed sets, props, and costumes. Basil Poledoris' music score is epic, grand, and a thing of beauty in itself.

Conan the Barbarian is one of the very few epic/fantasy films that's so raw and brutal, but it's still a fine adventure with lovable characters and solid plotting. Some may call this film overly violent or stupid, especially in the way it revels in savagery. But I've always valued the beauty of savagery, for I believe there is something compelling about the

When Conan came out in 1981, critics griped about its elephantine pacing and ponderous dialogue, and long stretches in which nothing much happened, giving evidence that they expected traditional action- adventure in the vein of, say, Sinbad. But director John Milius had set out to create something very different: an epic Aryan myth which translated the qualities of Wagnerian opera to cinema, and in large part he succeeded.

Conan has a sweeping epic feel, and is heavily dependent upon and driven by its setting and music to a degree that is very rare. As important as the deeds of the legendary hero, which are shown in brief and violent spurts of action, are the place and the culture that shaped that legend. The journey that created the myth, in short, is equal to the myth itself, and this is the logic and justification for the setting-heavy approach taken by Milius. And Basil Poledouris' wonderful music, which starts out Wagnerian and brassy, but adds middle Eastern touches as Conan's journey takes him in that direction, tracks along with Conan to show up the breadth of his epic journey while celebrating his heroic achievements.

Ultimately the story that gets told is somewhat less worthy of Milius' Wagnerian ambitions than are the music and the visuals, but the overall results more than justify the effort, especially when compared to the Italian sword and sandal knock-offs which followed this much copied but never equaled classic of the fantasy genre.

Conan the Barbarian fmovies. A cracking sword and sorcery yarn that has divided movie goer opinions since it's release. Some believing it's a beefy and shallow action movie, glossed up with big sets and fancy costumes. Others believing it is a truly eye popping visual feast of a film with hidden depth. The film was panned on its original release but since then has been something of a critical favourite. While the film is too murky and turgid at times, it is still engaging, despite needing to lighten up a touch, because this is based on a comic book after all. The film is fantastical but at the same time the film doesn't go quite as fantastical as the comic books did. This seems to be more based in reality but it still features a snake-man, giant snakes and witches.

The film follows Conan from childhood when his parents are killed and follows him through his early years as a slave to adulthood when he becomes a fighter and a thief. What drives Conan is pure bloodthirsty revenge on the man who killed his parents(James Earl Jones) and he is constantly spurred on by the belief he is doing his god's (Krom the god of steel) will. Conan constantly interprets important moments as messages from Krom.This film is so visual. The dialogue is minimal and yet meaningful. This gives the film a great atmosphere and really brings to mind two other fantasy action movies I really love, Crying Freeman and Highlander. They are all very similar in style. They all have the same strengths, in that they are both great looking, have a lead character driven by a spirit guide, controlled by his beliefs and a sense of destiny and all three have similar romantic subplot, all told with visuals, and little dialogue. They are all also blessed with unique and rousing scores. It's all very mythical and philosophical in each, with love at first site important. It is the love of the women that drive the men to their goals. In Freeman Dacascos wants to break away from his controlled regime, and take back his life when his love gives him the will to do so. In Highlander McLeod wants to lead a mortal life, to love and grow old with someone, to be human. Conan wants a life after he takes his revenge. The greatness of their romantic story and the purely visual way it is told is that during the movie he says only 5 words to her,and they all come in their first meeting. The film should not get away with something like that, yet it works well. The twist in Conan is that his lover sacrifices herself for him and in effect once he has achieved his goal the film is left with the feeling Conan has no further purpose in life.

The cast are good. Arnold was made into a star here. He is physically the best shape he's ever been in a movie. He is smaller than his bodybuilding days yet as big as he's ever been on screen and at the same time fleet of foot and nimble. Lest we not forget by the time he hit mega stardom he was in his 40's, but Arnold is truly in his prime here. It is a performance though of glaring inconsistency which is the likes of which I have never seen. It is at once his best and his worst performance. For all that Schwarzenegger does with a depth and humanity not seen in his films since, he overplays and looks amateurish in others, because of course he was an amateur here. What really does work is the chemistry between Sandahl Bergman and Schwarzy. She gets the best out of him and their scenes together are generally his best. Bergman received a Golden Globe for this and had Arnie consistently been as good as his higher points here, who knows? You get

Conan the Barbarian is one of those films that just shouldn't work on paper, but somehow ends up not only working, but becoming a classic. Everything is right here thanks to Milius unashamed bigger-than-life-direction. He takes him serious and dares to go far enough with the grandness, something few directors would dare do today for fear of being labeled pretentious.

Combine this with probably the best film score EVER written, and you have movie magic. Basil Poledouris score is such a classic that every other composer has ripped it off a thousand times, and rightly so. It's the granddaddy of Wagnerian tour-de-force scoring.

I think this is the best sword and magic / fantasy movie ever made. Unlike the second Conan movie (the destroyer, which was a huge disappointment) this is dark, dirty, violent (with the harsh way) and most of all faithful to the original Conan by Howard. By that i mean that conan wasn't a joker and babyoiled coverboy like in the sequel. Only part of the movie that i weren't content about was the childhood of conan, the part where he grows up spinning some goddamn wheel of fortune, Howard specifically points in many novels that Conan was grown free in the Cimmeria. Despite the this awkward transition to skip the childhood of Conan this still is the best fantasy movie ever made.