Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Conan the Barbarian should be called Conan the Bore-barian, because it bored me to tears with its near lack of action. It did have some good stuff in it, like a drunk Conan punching a camel in the head so hard it stumbles and falls over. That was hilarious. I would like to order another big bowl of camel punching please.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is Conan! Conan is a barbarian. Thusly, Arnold is a barbarian. Arney also has long luscious hair in this movie. I never would’ve guessed we would get to see that. The story of this long-haired barbarian is that all of his family was killed when he was a just a young lad and the baddies that killed his family took all the little kids as slaves, including Conan. He grows up in slavery and through that he developed ridiculous strength and muscles that is the Arnold. So he goes through some stuff and ends up getting set free after he becomes a learned scholar, so to speak. Then Conan goes on a mission to get revenge on the warlords who killed his family. Go Conan!

Arnold is looking young and really good in this flick. All that mess with Conan comes out in a body bag, although they didn’t have body bags back then so they just kinda got left wherever Conan killed ‘em. Animals even lose when it comes to fighting Conan. A pack of wild dogs are chasing him at one point, and then in the next scene you see him wearing a dog skin around his shoulders. Hmmm, where did you get your pretty coat Arnold? It looks vaguely familiar. I guess that was a warning sign to all animals: “You mess with me, you become a coat.” An animal could just think about taking a bite out of him and their teeth break. That’s why there was that era of the toothless lions and tigers in Conan-land going around gumming everything. I know I’m not supposed to talk about it, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer. Someone else had to know why there were so many toothless animals back then that they named it the Gummening Era.

Conan the Barbarian was, for the most part, friggin’ boring, but what little action it had was good. One thing it had going for it was when there was any little hit with a sword or club, there was a huge blood splurt. Yes, I meant splurt. That’s the sound it makes. Conan also had a sword wielding female who did her share of chopping heads off. That’s always a plus in my book. You know, when I time travel this is one time period I would never want to visit. It just looks awful, unfriendly, and stinky.

Conan the Barbarian is one of Arnold’s earlier, more known movies. His acting is not great but it is a million times better than Hercules in New York. Conan was 12 years later and that made a world of difference in Arnold’s ability to speak English and act. It’s quite amazing really. It’s like the difference between a 2 year old kid and an 8 year old kid’s ability to speak. Conan didn’t really have a lot of lines anyway, all that time mostly improved his ability to brood, and furrow his brow angrily. You can definitely see improvement in Arnold’s brooding and brow-furrowing skills throughout his career.

Time until real action starts: ~ 7 minutes

Baddies: Vanir Warlords

Best Line: “Grant me one thing, Crom… revenge. And if you do not listen, then the hell with you!”

Best Kill: Conan is fighting against the baddies. He has set a trap to which one of the baddies has been lured into. Conan sets it off and suddenly the guy is impaled with a wooden spike attached to a spring loaded…thing. It’s sort of like the game mouse trap, but only if the mouse was eviscerated at the end.

Best “Oh s***” Kill: James Earl Jones and the warlords just finished killing most of the people in Conan’s village. Conan (as a kid) and his mother are standing there facing Jones. The mom and Jones have their swords drawn looking like they are about to fight. Then the mom puts her sword down slowly. Jones turns his back slowly like he’s going to let her live then he turns around quick as a cat and lops her head off. All you see is Conan holding his mom’s hand, and then her head falls to the ground and her body falls over while little Conan is still holding her hand. Oh sh**! I really didn’t see that coming!

Action Rating: 1 Drunk Arnold Punching a Camel, out of 5

Illustration by Alex Langley. Rocket Llama World Headquarters

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!