Conan the Barbarian (1982)
A horde of rampaging warriors massacre the parents of young Conan and enslave the young child for years on The Wheel of Pain. As the sole survivor of the childhood massacre, Conan is released from slavery and taught the ancient arts of fighting. Transforming himself into a killing machine, Conan travels into the wilderness to seek vengeance on Thulsa Doom, the man responsible for killing his family. In the wilderness, Conan takes up with the thieves Valeria and Subotai. The group comes upon King Osric, who wants the trio of warriors to help rescue his daughter who has joined Doom in the hills.
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Still an unchallenged masterpiece of the Sword & Sorcerer fantasy genre. Sadly, there are not much movies of quality in this genre. The second movie, Conan the Destroyer, with Arnie aka Conan is also a good one. Trash and entertainment at its best. Both movies I still re-watch from time to time. The remake of 2011 is not bad but sadly Jason Momoa is no Schwarzenegger. Robert E. Howard wrote a lot of stories of Conan's adventures and I still got hope that I will have one day the chance to watch new, well-done movies of the Hyperborian cosmos. Maybe someday a production company will clone Mr. Schwarzenegger for that purpose. Hope dies last - ;)
After everyone in his village is ruthlessly murdered by a warlord known as "Thulsa Doom" (James Earl Jones) a young boy named "Conan" (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is captured and sentenced to hard labor as a slave on a giant treadmill for the rest of his life. However, as the years pass he is essentially forgotten about and subsequently sold into servitude as a gladiator. This new situation agrees with him and he soon becomes the most successful and feared gladiator in the land. Then one day he is freed and with him goes this fierce anger for revenge against Thulsa Doom who slaughtered his people and caused him so much suffering. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film turned out to be surprisingly good due to a number of certain qualities in its favor. It had a good, action-oriented plot and some decent acting on the part of Sandahl Bergman ("Valeria") who won a Golden Globe Award for "New Star of the Year" and a Saturn Award for "Best Actress" in the process. Likewise, it was also nominated for several other Saturn Awards to include "Best Fantasy Film", "Best Music" and "Best Costumes" among others. Be that as it may, while this might not be a film for the ages, I still found it to be an extremely enjoyable movie and I have rated it accordingly.
As a boy, I grew up reading the Savage Sword comics, which were all about Conan. I had posters of the Death Dealer on my wall.When the team for this movie went looking for people to play Conan, they found perhaps the most perfect person on the planet at that time, Arnold. Arnold was made to play Conan. He has the hair, he has the scowl, he has the muscles. It was perhaps one of the most perfect actor to comic hero matches in film history.They needed good music. They found Basil Poledouris, virtually unknown in N. America. He produced one of the greatest movie soundtracks in history, right up there with John Williams Star Wars. His music thunders with hoof beats, slashing swords, and the undiscovered horizon, making you want to scream a war cry and gallop off into the sunset to war.After playing Darth Vader, James E. Jones could not have been a better choice for Thulsa Doom, one of the greatest fantasy villains ever to appear on screen. "Now they will know why they fear the night. They shall all drown in lakes of blood...."Max Von Sydow is brilliant as king Osric, "A LION HAS ET HIM. AHHHA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!"Sandhal Bergman is perfect as very teenage boy's fantasy blonde Valkyrie, throwing herself into the role and nearly cutting off her finger for it.Gerry Lopez, an unknown surfer from the beaches south of LA, is absolutely punching over his weight and nails it as the crafty sneaky thief sidekick SUBOTAI! "MY GOD is the EVERLASTING SKY! He LOOKS DOWN on your god on his mountain!"To top it, the armor, costumes, weapons, and fight scenes are some of THE BEST EVER DONE.All the stars and planets and comets were in alignment for this one, this one time... never again.
Watched it when I was four and just watched again at 40.This is a solid movie, the fight, the love, the companionship is real in this movie.One of Arnold's best, It's has aged well The score is outstanding today.Great score!Final fight scene is legendary.