Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox", here on Reaction & Review. Yes, guys, it's the start of a new year and this is my 5th annual "Tales of the Longbox" marathon as well. So, why don't we start things off with something a little bit different that isn't the usual kindle from DC or Marvel? Well...the latter is sort of a lie, but I'll get to that in a second. So anyway, tonight's movie, to kick off the new year, is a fantasy film from 1982. That movie is "Conan The Barbarian".
Now, I'm gonna be sort of bending the rules for this one. See, my usual method for selecting these movies for this marathon is that I would space things out between the comic book films that are published under different companies. Basically, I would pick out 3 movies from Marvel, 3 movies from DC, and a couple of independent ones. That way, everyone gets a fair chance rather than just one publisher over-saturating the other ones.
Well, this time, I'm unintentionally gonna have to slightly bend those rules for this particular marathon. I say "unintentionally", because when I picked out the Conan movies, I did not know that the Conan comics were mostly published under Marvel Comics. Yeah, apparently, the Conan comics have a *long* history of being published under Marvel. And that's probably my fault for not noticing this until the moment I started doing the minimal amount of research on this movie. But, I am still gonna count Conan as being independent, because the comics were also published under Dark Horse for a time, before bouncing back over to Marvel, followed by the rights being acquired by Titan Comics. Who, at the time that I'm writing this anyway, still currently own the rights to publish Conan comics.
So anyway, now that I've gotten that little snag out of the way, let's actually talk about tonight's movie. From what little I know about it, I do know a couple of things. First of all, I know that this movie stars Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it's been quite a while since I last covered anything starring the man. The only two movies I can ever recall covering that he starred in were "The Villain", which was a Western comedy that I really enjoyed, and that god-awful "Red Sonya" movie that I reviewed a couple of years ago for one of my previous "Tales of the Longbox" marathons. So...yeah, Arnold's presence in this series has been rather lacking. So to make up for that, I've decided to not only cover this movie, but also it's sequel, which will be covered later in the first half of this marathon.
As for what else I know about this movie, it's honestly not a whole lot. I'm gonna take a wild guess here, though, and say that I'm probably gonna be watching an origin story about Conan the Barbarian. Which might prove to be interesting, though how it will actually fare out is a-whole-nother thing altogether. But that's what we're here for; To see if it will be entertaining at all. And I have heard mildly good things about this first movie, so the chances of it being good are, well...pretty good. But anyway, I'm just stalling here. Let's just see how this movie will turn out, shall we? So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Conan The Barbarian".
12 minutes later
So..,James Earl Jones just offed Conan's mothers head off, just like that. If that's not gonna fucking traumatize a kid, I don't know what will, honestly.
17 minutes later
You know, guys, I'm kinda surprised by how little dialogue there is in this movie so far. And we're only a half an hour into the film, mind you, but I'm actually sorta surprised that it found a way to tell it's story without using a whole lot of dialogue. That's actually really impressive.
5 minutes later
O...K...so apparently, the woman Conan was humping actually turned out to be a...succubus, I think. I'm not totally sure what the hell she's actually suppose to be, but I will say that honestly took me off guard a little bit. I honestly was not expecting that.
6 minutes later
OK, there is something genuinely hilarious about Conan punching a camel in the face, knocking it's lights out. I never thought I would see that kind of thing in a movie, especially about Conan the Barbarian, but I got it, and it was funny as hell.
11 minutes later
Well, guys, I am gonna say that the score here has been really good so far. There is a lot of music here, and it's overtaking the scenes where there isn't any dialogue. Mind you, I'm not saying that as a knock at the movie, I'm just saying that it works really well to it's advantage. So yeah, I can definitely add the music as a big positive.
17 minutes later
You know, I don't know what it is, guys, but seeing Conan wearing a robe's outfit like that looks goofy as shit on him. Like, so far, most of the costuming here has been really good, but then I see Conan wearing that outfit, and it just looks fucking goofy as hell on him. Just wanted to make mention of that.
14 minutes later
I am gonna say, guys, that these ghostly creatures here look really fucking cool. And the way that our heroes are battling them while trying to save Conan from, well, I guess, being taken into the astral world or something. I'm not totally sure about that part, but the effects for the ghosts look really cool, so at least I can say that much.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Conan The Barbarian". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, where to begin with this one...? Well, I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised by it. I mean, I sorta went into it, thinking that it was going to be some cheese-fest fantasy movie. And while there are a couple of moments of cheesiness to be found here, for the most part, this movie is really solid. I definitely enjoyed this movie a lot more than I should have.
So, why don't we just go right into it here and start off with the writing. And I want to start off with the dialogue. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that this is the best dialogue ever written to film or anything like that, but how exactly it's handled here. You see, this movie does something that I don't really see much of anymore, in which there's very minimal dialogue here. The best example I'm gonna bring up is the first 30 minutes of the film. Most of the dialogue in that first half hour is narrated by Mako's character, who's basically just a wizard, although you don't really get to know that until much later on. But anyway, the first half of the film is basically chronicling Conan's fall and rise, where he started off in child laboring after his entire village was killed off, save for him as a young boy. And from there, it's told through narration that Conan basically just became a warrior who killed so many people that his name became more well-known, to a point where he secretly gets freed by one of his captors because he was just held prisoner for so long ever since he was a child.
Now, what makes this first half hour really good is that, even though there is narration explaining some things, they don't do that throughout the whole thing, you actually get to see Conan's rise for yourself. It basically did something that I don't really see a whole lot of movies do anymore, in which they showcase "less is more". You aren't being told every single bit of detail throughout Conan's early years, you are basically seeing it for yourself as to how things play out. And it's honestly really refreshing to see that from a movie like this, where I hear a ton of movies nowadays that try to explain every little piece of detail about a story to you that you're not given the chance to see and learn things by yourself. This movie, at least the first half hour of it anyway, does a really good job in showing you how to tell a story with as minimal dialogue as possible.
Now that's not to say that the rest of the story isn't solid at all, it really is a solid story. It's very episodic, which is to be expected from a fantasy film, but it still works. Our characters here are very fleshed out, although, this is gonna tie into the only weak part of the writing. Namely, that I don't think any of the characters got any actual names. I know of Conan, because he's the lead character and all, but everyone else, I can't recall a single name that was uttered, if it all. I know of Mako's character being a wizard, one of Conan's friends is a thief, and the blonde woman being his girlfriend. And, of course, there is James Earl Jones playing our lead villain, but again, I don't recall his name whatsoever. It might've been uttered once or twice, but I honestly don't remember what it was. Again, the only name I know of is our titled character Conan. But beyond that, names are kinda non-existent here. Perhaps maybe when I watch it a second time, I'll try and see if I can pick up on any character names that I potentially missed, if there were any other names at all.
One other thing that I wanted to quickly comment on is the tone of the film. Now, being that this is a story about Conan the Barbarian rising to fame, and for anyone who has read the comics, it is a rather dark-based story. And while this movie does have it's dark moments, it doesn't lean too heavily into the darkish tone. It's not like, say, "The Dark Knight" where almost everything in that movie is about as dark and edgy as possible. It still has enough breathing room to fit in some light humor here and there, and it doesn't feel out of place at all. It sorta leans on being a bit cheesy at times, but like I already stated, it doesn't feel entirely out of place for a movie like this. I mean, you have Conan laughing and smiling at times in this movie, and it shows that he's not exactly the grim and gritty character like he was shown at the beginning of the flick. And if the movie had kept that tone throughout his character for the entirety of it's run, then I think it would've hurt the movie a little bit. I prefer it when a movie knows when it wants to have fun and didn't stick into being dark for the entire run of it.
So yeah, guys, the writing here is really good. And the acting here is also really solid, as well. There are two actors, in particular, I want to make mention of. The first is, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is quite possibly one of his best performances I have seen from him in quite a while, and what makes his acting really good here is the fact that he doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue to work with. Most of his acting comes from his fight choreography, in which he will basically let his actions do the speaking for him. It's great, and it's one of those examples of actors who work better when given minimal lines, Another example would have to be Jean-Claude Van Damme, in case anyone may ask. But yeah, Arnold's acting here is surprisingly good. The actor I have to mention is James Earl Jones. While I don't remember the villain name for his character, the acting from him is also spectacular. But then again, we are talking about James Earl Jones here, a man who can take almost any script, good or bad, and turn it into solid gold. There is one bit in the movie that I wanted to mention about him, which was during the first 30 minutes. When you first see him, he says no dialogue, but it's the intense stare he gives to young Conan's mother that makes it all the more powerful. The man was a master at his craft, and when you see him give out that stare, it would send chills down your spine. That's how good he really was. And the rest of the acting is still great, too, of course. But Arnold and James easily makes this movie worth watching for their performances alone.
Special effects here are also really good. I'm talking about everything involving the blood effects, the costuming, makeup, and our sets. All of that is perfect here. The fight choreography is also really good, too. And also, remember those effects I mentioned earlier involving the ghosts? Well, I was wondering if it was possible that they used some hand-drawn animation, since CG wasn't a thing yet at the time. And sure enough, that is partially true. They were made by George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, which gave the effects of our ghosts here. And they look amazing! They seriously do. The on-set locations also look great, too. Guys, there's nothing more positive I can say about the special effects without beating a dead horse, other than that they are great.
Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is lit rather well. The sound-mix is, admittedly, kinda muffled in about a couple of scenes, and it's mainly scenes where we see Conan and the male thief, when they first get together and they talk. It's those scenes that are kinda sorta muffled and you really can't hear much of their dialogue. But everything else involving the sound-mix is all right. The score here is amazing. Most of the score here was done by Basil Poledouris, and a lot of it is just orchestral music. And like I said, it's fucking amazing, and it definitely makes the movie stand out a whole lot more, especially in the more quiet scenes where Arnold doesn't have very much speaking dialogue. Now whether that part was intentional, considering Arnold's limited acting ability, or not, it still works really well. So regardless, the music here is fantastic.
Overall, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Conan The Barbarian"? Oh, absolutely. This thing was definitely a surprise to me. Which is really saying something, because I had heard only mildly good things about it. Well, I don't know what exactly they said, but I can assure you guys, this movie is a hell of a lot more than mildly good, it's almost great. This is definitely one of Arnold's better movies, in my opinion. And I'm curious to see what he can do in the sequel, which again, I'm gonna review later on in this marathon. But I'll just have to wait and see for now. In the meantime, I think I'm gonna go and play some more of "The Legend of Dragoon" on my PS4. It's a classic RPG game in my eyes, and I'm still kinda in the beginning of phases of my 3rd playthrough of the game. So that's what I'll go do once I get done typing this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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