I’m frankly surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. I figured it would be a dumb movie (it is) but it’s a well done dumb movie.
I’m gonna start with some gripes since frankly there’s so few of them. First, there’s the obvious orientalism. Not much to say about it other than it sucks but I’ve also seen much worse. Second, the nudity. I get that it’s Part of the Package, but it felt over the top and more or less meaningless. Third, the character of Subotai was pretty thin and his reasons for traveling with Conan even thinner. Sucks for one of the main characters. Also I get Protagonist Focus and all, but I noticed that the apparently asian man character (actor is Hawaiian) didn’t end up with the female lead, Conan/Schwarzeneggar did.
Now for the good stuff:
What an amazing sense of place! It’s seldom that I really feel so sucked in to a fantasy world like this! I kinda like that the supernatural is there, but also that there’s competing gods of… dubious existence.
Mako and James Earl Jones are here and giving it their all. Using Mako as the narrator is always the most correct choice.
I was pleasantly surprised by the character of Valeria. She had real agency in the plot in a way that felt meaningful and personal. It sucks that she dies at least in part to give Conan motivation, but they frame it specifically as the consequences of her choice.
On that note, the fact that this movie’s arguably most well known line is about “lamentation of women”, it feels surprisingly feminist (for the era). Conan treats basically all female characters (all two of them) as deserving of their own agency. In the case of Valeria, his true equal.
Great use of stuff like camera angles, sound, and lighting to give weight to the moments in the film.