TIFF Bell Lightbox Presents The Rise of Beefcake Cinema: ‘Conan the Barbarian’; or Arnie’s big misadventure
Conan the Barbarian
Directed by John Milius
Written by John Milius and Oliver Stone
USA, 1982
John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian is nothing if not title appropriate, because barbarous is the only potent way of describing it. Based on a pulp fiction magazine of the same name, the movie version feels like it only adapted every other page, focusing on the violent and naughty bits instead of story, resulting in a movie with as many breasts as dead bodies.
Like a Game of Thrones episode (an overlong one) minus any semblance of a plot or political intrigue, Conan the Barbarian is a gigantic misadventure that is, as the British might says, a bloody waste of time.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the eponymous Conan, and the film’s first major problem lies herein. Schwarzenegger surely looks the part, with his hulking physique, but his screen presence doesn’t match up to the gravitas that’s needed of him, and that’s not due to the film’s lack of trying.
The film’s first 30 minutes is essentially a back-story for his character, documenting his parents’ death at the hands of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) and his introduction and escape from slavery, but at the end of it all, Conan is still a person without personality.
Schwarzenegger’s line delivery is often stilted and incomprehensible, and even the film’s use of voiceover narration is insufficient in making us fully understand him. We are left with a big brute of a man, and we have to literally project some characterization into him.
After he flees from slavery, Conan will meander around looking for a purpose, and the movie will feel exactly the same way. There’s even a ten-minute stretch in the movie where Conan will channel his inner Anthony Bourdain, going on a travel and food show where all he does is eat and take in the sights. It’s all very uneventful.
He eventually comes across like-minded individuals in Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), but their escapades feel arbitrary and entirely impromptu as well.
On a whim, they decide to scale a building in order to steal some treasure guarded within it, for no other reason than because the script demanded it of them. Afterwards, they are taken in by King Osric (Max von Sydow) and are given a mission to rescue his daughter. The movie goes on from there and it doesn’t get any more coherent.
This kind of random storytelling was a calculated sacrifice on the part of the creators, choosing instead to indulge in epic violence and debauchery.
For example, the heist scene mentioned above was simple a thinly disguised excuse for Conan to battle a giant snake, à la Harry Potter, and to have a topless woman wearing a dangerously revealing diaper. Some may argue that it was to lead up to narrative developments, but it can’t be argued that the film, and this scene, wouldn’t have been far more taut and better paced if it didn’t take up such an excessive amount of time indulging in blood and breasts.
The over-two-hour running time and the uninspired plot is reason enough for Conan’s downfall, but what makes the movie so unbearable is the fact that it takes itself so damn seriously.
A piece of pulp fiction knows its ridiculous and usually employs a bit of tongue in cheek, but Conan the Barbarian never does. Or does it (camel punch)?
Either way, it doesn’t really matter. Nothing much about the film does.
- Justin Li
For tickets and more information, please visit the TIFF website.
If Justin was a great writer, he’d write books. If he was a great cineaste, he’d be a filmmaker. Since he’s only marginally adequate in either of those two fields, he settled for the logical synthesis of the two; movie reviews. Hailing from the great city of Toronto, his favourite director is Woody Allen and his favourite film is Lost in Translation. 
