My Review of "Conan the Destroyer"

Conan the Destroyer came out in 1984 a mere 2 years after the original movie. It makes sense because the first one was a classic. I loved that original movie yet I never saw the sequel for some reason. All that has to come to and end when I finally found the movie on Blu-Ray. This has been many years in the making and I finally get to know what everyone's talking about.

This movie starts off not too long after the events of the original movie. We still have the same wizard narrator as in the original. He basically explains the story so far and tells us to have a great time with the story.

The movie then opens up with Conan praying to his gods meanwhile his friend Malak is counting the treasures they've stolen. It's kind of weird that they have a new sidekick with Malak when Subotai (from the original) seemed like a way better character. Malak is a weasel like thief that cowers at the sight of danger.

That doesn't help because a group of armed guards try to overtake the two in a matter of minutes. Conan of course takes down the majority of the guards. All of this is then halted when the leader of the group Queen Taramis gives Conan a proposition.

Taramis realizes that Conan is still mourning the loss of his love Valeria from the first movie and promises that she can revive her if he takes on her task. Being as gullible as ever Conan agrees. He will do anything to get Valeria back. Then again in a world of magic he can't be too wrong in believing that Taramis can bring Valeria back.

The task is basically to guide and protect princess Jehnna on some sort of destined journey. There's a prophet that says that Jehnna is the only person that will be able to retrieve a special jewel from some far away place. Jehnna has visions of it and she is guided by some mystical force to follow her righteous path.

We then go on a journey where Conan will befriend some new strangers to help him along the way. A new gang of ragamuffins will test their wits and might for this journey of high adventure!

Instantly, this movie has the same look and feel of the previous movie which is a big plus. There's some more diversity in this movie with their character selection which I commend them with especially back in the 80s. In some ways this movie is ahead of its time. One of the cool new characters is Zula (Grace Jones) who is a badass warrior who is similar to Valeria. We also have Wilt Chamberlain who plays the gigantic warrior Bombaata. That was a huge surprise to see.

I wasn't too happy with the character Malak although I understand why he's there. It's perhaps the actor that played the character. There are several scenes that are quite awkward because of the wooden performance of this character. Maybe the character could have grown on me with a different actor but I thought the performance was glaringly bad. At times it really took me away from the movie. Yes I understand his character is there to add some comic relief but there are a number of times where they fall flat.

There are some advancement to some of the special effects in this movie but not a ton. For the most part it will feel like an 80s movie because of the bad special effects but you can't fault them for that. They had to work with what they had.

The picture quality is still quite questionable and it really sucks that they can't do much more to better the image quality of the movie. They can only do so much with their source material.

Still this is quite a fun romp that looked like they were going to create another one. Unfortunately they never came out with another one to continue the series. That's too bad because I really liked this series despite its faults.

Overall, I had a good time with this movie but not quite as great as the first. They added a little too many awkward jokes that threw me off. When they were on the adventure that's when it was at its best. It's the kid in me that couldn't help but be entertained. Unfortunately I don't think I could re-watch this one over and over again though. I will have to give this movie a 6 out 10. Still I would have hoped to watch another sequel if they ever made one.