Conan the Barbarian Review

MPAA Rating: R
Released: 1982

Conan the Barbarian was director John Milius' vision of Robert Howard's fierce barbarian warrior, and upon the movie's release fans of Conan rejoiced, for Milius did a fantastic job capturing the essence of the source material. Which isn't to suggest that Milius was the only reason for this movie's success – a young Arnold Schwarzenegger may have had more than a little to do with it…

Conan the Barbarian was one of the 80's best entries in the sword-and-sandals genre due to its respect for Robert Howard's source material as well as its overall quality. Conan isn't necessarily an easy character to bring to the big screen due to his extremely violent and sexist ways (at least if you wish to keep an R rating!)… Conan was originally the very definition of an anti-hero. Therefore it won't come as too much surprise that director John Milius chose to provide the barbarian a little bit more civility than the original novels reflected, but what may surprise you is just how accurate the film depiction ended up despite the small sacrifices.

The choice to use an unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger (unknown in Hollywood circles, that is) for the role of Conan was brilliant, because Schwarzenegger possessed both the brawn and the essence of the ancient Cimmerian.

Starting with Conan's childhood, the film shows the unhappy childhood of Conan the Cimmerian as well as the events that forged him into such a deadly warrior. When Conan's parents are murdered by raiders under the command of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), head of the snake-cult of Set, the young boy is captured and sold into slavery. Throughout his childhood and early teen years he is chained to the Wheel of Pain and forced to grind grain endlessly.

Soon his owner sees another potential for the Cimmerian as a pit fighter, an occupation Conan proves to be quite adept in. One day his owner decides to free Conan, at which time he teams up with Subotai the Mongol (Gerry Lopez) and Valeria, Queen of the Thieves (Sandahl Bergman) to undertake an epic quest that will find him fulfilling his father's prophecy as well as confronting the ominous Thulsa Doom, murderer of his parents.

Conan the Barbarian has been credited with single-handedly propelling the popularity of the sword and sorcery genre during the 80's, and while I agree that Conan was a great movie and a commercial success, such acclaim might be a little higher than warranted. Some fans of the genre claim that The Beastmaster and The Sword and the Sorcerer were knockoffs of Conan the Barbarian, but if they looked closer they'd see that all three movies were released in 1982. In fact Beastmaster was released just a couple of months after Conan, so obviously they were in production simultaneously.

Of course such arguments aren't really important because no matter how you slice it, this sword-and-sandals movie was a cut above most of its peers. And before I subject you to any more cutting puns, I'm going to award Conan the Barbarian a rating of…

Movie rating: 7 stars

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