Conan The Destroyer

Crom, But Not Forgotten

Conan The Destroyer
USA/Mexico 1984 
Directed by Richard Fleischer
20th Century Fox Australian Blu Ray All Zones 

Oh, well... I remember looking forward to seeing Conan The Destroyer when it came out in 1984 but, even then, I realised it was a bit of a mess. Fun but... not that great as a movie about Robert E. Howard’s memorable hero. Let’s make no mistake, Conan The Barbarian (reviewed here) was pretty much the last truly great film from the ‘heroic fantasy/sword and sorcery’ genre and still is to this day, in my opinion (Peter Jackson kind of screwed up Tolkien and the nearest thing we have to a modern fantasy adventure of this kind is probably the contemporary set Mandy from a couple of years ago, which I reviewed here). The fact that John Milius wasn’t able to return to the director’s chair here really sealed the fate of this film, I think. 

What we have is an adventure fantasy movie with the emphasis on the more magical and mystical elements of Robert E. Howard’s Conan adventures... at the expense of the absence of a lot of the things that really worked so well from that first movie. The character is way too sophisticated in this sequel and the tone much too light hearted. The idea was to make the film even more box office friendly by making it appeal more to kids so the violence and single mindedness of the plot was kind of toned down in the hopes that it would get a lower classification in cinemas... something which kinda backfired in the UK, where the film still managed to garner an AA rating with nothing much to show for it. So, there’s also a lot less blood letting and goriness in this iteration and... that does kind of betray the spirit of the original stories, to some extent. 

Asides from Sven-Ole Thorsen, who is playing a completely different character and who is in the majority of Arnold Schwarzeneger’s films, we have only two characters back from the first film. At least they are played by the same actors... Schwarzenegger as Conan The Cimmerian and Mako as the minor wizard Akiro. We also have a bunch of new characters payed by Grace Jones, Olivia d’Abo, Wilt Chamberlain, Tracey Walter, Pat Roach (as Thoth Amon, no less, who never even met Conan in the original stories, instead always staying at the periphery of the adventures) and, as the other lead villain (as if Thoth Amon wasn’t enough for them) we have, in the words of the Superman The Movie Topps Bubble Gum card captions, ‘the alluring Sarah Douglas’. 

And, they’re all good actors and they jell quite well (well, I heard Grace Jones didn’t get on with some on the set but, yeah, I kinda expected that) and are all pretty good but, as I said, Conan has moved on and although he is still obsessed with the dead Valeria, the film seems like barely anything to do with the original. It’s a kind of half-hearted fantasy adventure which looks and feels more like Roger Moore’s For Your Eyes Only era films than the gritty, half exploitative, sword and sandal epic it really needs to be. I believe the tone of the film was not favourable to the director and that Schwarzenneger also objected to the ‘dumbing down’ of the character in this way which, I believe, went a good way to him losing interest in doing a third movie in the series (at the time... I’m still hearing the third part, King Conan, is still in development with him attached). 

The one good thing is the late, great composer Basil Poledouris’ sequel score. He does recook several themes from the first one such as the main Anvil Of Crom music, the Wheel Of Pain music (when Conan and another character are trying to lift open a heavy door), a sped up version of the Wifeing theme (during a brief, static effects insert of Sandahl Bergam as the dead Valeria) and several versions of The Orgy (aka the greatest score cue in soundtrack history), which I always thought was supposed to represent the Cult of Thulsa Doom from the first movie and so, therefore, seems somewhat out of place but no less welcome here. Other than these, there’s a new heroic theme which also seems somewhat out of place, while still being fairly listenable but, you know, nothing new which matches the strength of the themes in the first one (nothing as cool as, say, the Theology theme at any rate). Still, Poledouris was a great composer and the score is probably the best thing about this movie, it has to be said. I wish Intrada would finally release that restored version of the score they’ve been working on for years... I really have no desire to purchase the rerecording after the travesty of the Conan The Barbarian re-recording.*

The only other thing I could say is that you do get the odd shade of the visual legacy of Conan thrown in, perhaps sometimes accidentally, from time to time. The main moment, to my mind, is when Conan is fighting the creature that Thoth Amon metamorphoses into in the chamber of mirrors, which strongly resembles, to me anyway, one of the Frank Frazetta covers from the 1960s/70s Conan paperback reprints. Which is nice and a rare flash of gold in an otherwise drab production, it has to be said.

And that’s me done with Conan The Destroyer, methinks. I probably don’t really have to watch this one again in my lifetime because it does kind of leave you with a bad taste in the mouth after the sheer brilliance of the first movie. For years I waited for a third movie to come along which would crown Conan King of Aquilonia but, alas, when a third film did come along it was a rebooted version of Conan The Barbarian (a review of this was forged by me here many years ago, when this blog was still young in the eyes of men) but, alas, it didn’t star Schwarzenegger and it got as much wrong as it got right, it seemed to me. The 1982 movie is still the one great Conan movie, as far as I’m concerned and, as the years pass, I begin to think it will always remain so. 

*Actually, since I wrote this review, they have finally released it in 2022... still havent gotten around to listening to it yet, though.

Total Recall 2012

First Among Recalls

Total Recall 2012 USA 
Directed by Len Wiseman
Playing at UK cinemas now

The year was 1990.

8 years since Blade Runner came out in cinemas.

8 years since I read between 30 to 40 of Philip K. Dick’s second hand novels and short story compilations over the space of a year.

Total Recall, directed by Paul Veerhoven was released into cinemas and I was really looking forward to it because it was alleged to have been based on one of my favourite of Dick’s short stories, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. The title of the new movie bothered me though... after all, with such a great title on the short story, why couldn’t the movie just follow suit (and why call a movie Blade Runner, for that matter, when the original novel’s titles is just so darned cool? Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?).

So there I was, sitting in the cinema in 1990 with my friends and the credits on Total Recall roll and, within about 15 seconds I am absolutely furious! This is ****ing plagiarism right here. This movie is scored by Jerry Goldsmith, one of my all-time favourite composers and I just want to strangle him and never before, or since, have I actually fought this hard to not jump up in front of an audience and knock some sense in to their lack of reaction and lead them in an orderly mob to the projection room with pitchforks and lighted torches.

I look around at my friends and none of them seems particularly worried or as angry as I am and... I just can’t believe it. But I am so enraged I want to spit and stamp my feet. Jerry Goldsmith’s opening title music to Total Recall is, as anybody with half an ear could tell you, a rip off of Basil Poledouris’ opening title music, Anvil Of Crom, from the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger adaptation of Conan The Barbarian. I am restless and fidgety in my seat. How am I supposed to enjoy a film when it’s being all copy-cat on Schwarzenneger’s arse.

Of course, what had happened was that the films producers, or possibly director, or anyway... some idiotic suit who wouldn’t know the difference maybe... had wanted to recapture the glory of the earlier Schwarzenneger movie with this one and asked the great Jerry Goldsmith to ape the style of the Conan The Barbarian main titles... probably by way of creating a sound temp track for the movie, a practice Jerry Goldsmith always hated and never really mellowed to (especially after working with Sir Ridley Scott a couple of times, is my understanding), which included Anvil Of Crom over the rough cut.

So I can’t blame Jerry for doing his job and I’ll forgive him... but I won’t forgive the people in charge of this production for doing that to both Jerry and Basil. How awful for them both!

This major felony of artistic taste-crime was further compounded when the film decided it was only going to take the basic kernel of the idea of Dick’s story and, rather than treating it in an intelligent, witty and, frankly downright funny presentation like the writer did, instead turn it into some kind of horrible action movie with a bunch of, frankly, lame special effects (even for the time), and generally destroy all that was good and enjoyable about the original short by cloaking it in a miasma of boring, couldn’t-care-less, chase fests. It was not good and, so far, I’ve never been that tempted to take another look at it and, the few times I’ve tried to get into the score, I’ve always started seeing red and flying off the handle every time I fire up the opening title music. I just can’t get through it when that red mist of angry musical deja vu pours into my ears.

I found out just recently that one of my favourite living directors, David Cronenberg, was developing that original film for a year, attached as the director, before being dropped from the project by the producers. Apparently, he was fired for attempting to make a movie version which was fairly close and respectful to the original PKD source material... when all that the producers wanted was, and I quote, “Indiana Jones on Mars”. I think David Cronenberg’s extremely “Phildickian” inspired movie eXistenZ, which even contains some specific references to Dick’s The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch in it, if I’m remembering it right, is far superior to what the makers of Total Recall ended up with in every way possible and is a testament to Cronenberg’s ingenuity, skill and ultimately, suitability to this kind of project.

Then I heard they were “remaking” Total Recall.

That’s how they put it. Remaking Total Recall.

Not doing an adaptation of PKD’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. Which rankled me somewhat, as you can imagine.

Furthermore, I then heard that Colin Farrell had been picked up for the movie. Now I’ve never quite been able to stand Colin Farrell for very long. He was in a fairly cool movie by Spielberg, inspired by Dick’s story Minority Report, but he wasn’t in it much and that’s about as long as I can handle him for. Which is why I wasn’t all that keen in ever going to see this new incarnation, which hit the cinemas a couple of days ago over here (why are a handful of films now suddenly coming out on a Wednesday or a Monday over here at the moment?). That was until I saw the trailer for it in front of a couple of movies over the last few weeks and liked what I saw in those trailers enough to go and see this on its opening night (in the UK).

I have to be honest... it’s not so much a straight remake of the original movie, thank goodness, but it still significantly “deviates from the brief” so to speak, if that brief was indeed to make a version of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. You still don’t get the humour of the wild, weird and varied scenarios as the company in the story tries to give the central protagonist a new memory... opening like a set of Russian dolls to reveal that the character has had many lives, all of which match the wildest inventions of the scenarios they are trying to create for him (secret agent, superhero etc., it’s been a while since I read this, obviously). However, having said that, I did rather enjoy this movie on a purely “this is a piece of modern action cinema which works quite well” kinda level and I think a lot of people would like this if they gave it half a chance...I understand lots of people in the US stayed away in droves for this. I think it will make some cash when it gets a DVD release, however.

So... there’s a couple of references to the 1990 version, at least a couple I could pick up on given my relative inexperience of the original and this will probably bring a smile to the faces of fans of the first. But, unlike both Dick’s original work and also the Schwarzenneger vehicle, this particular film is taking itself very seriously most of the way through and it lacks any real humour.

Colin Farrell’s performance is quite good and I was able to suspend my disbelief and allergic reaction to him for, just about, the full duration of the film. Can’t really fault him as an actor... just one of those personalities on screen who I personally have trouble with. He’s excellent in this, as are most people in it, and that should be good enough for me.

Jessica Biel, who is another old hand from a Philip K. Dick movie (Next, inspired by PKD’s The Golden Man) is also on hand and she does a great job here but unfortunately she’s kind of overshadowed a bit by the absolute powerhouse villainess performance put in by Kate Beckinsale in this one as Colin Farrel’s wife/baby sitter. I usually find her a bit hit and miss, although I loved her in Van Helsing and Whiteout, but in this one she really outdoes herself. It’s a real “action woman with confidence” tour-de-force and she seems to have inherited that great ability to really look like she actually could do it all in real life (Nobody could but, hey, she looks like she could, okay?).

The editing in this one is fast and furious and the emphasis really is on action. There’s not a heck of a lot of screen time with people standing around talking... it’s pretty much one big long action chase lasting roughly two hours. There’s also not a lot of let-up to the pacing but that’s just the kind of movie it is. Fortunately, although the editing is pushing through the images at a frantic rate, it’s quite competent on this one (they’re pulling back and getting better again in Hollywoodland with this kind of stuff, I think) and it’s pretty clear throughout the stacked-in-a-row action set pieces just what is going on and when. It’s very easy to comprehend the choreography of the crash, the bang and the wallop.

Harry Gregson-Williams, another composer who I find a bit hit and miss, pulls off a techno augmented score which perfectly complements the thrills on screen and hits all the right notes... all the right notes, that is, if the movie was going to be called The Total Bourne Recollection. It has to be said, the score is excellent, but one of the problems with the movie is that it does seem, in a fair few places, to be trying to capture the zeitgeist of the Jason Bourne franchise and there will be a fair few scenes in this one which might take viewers back to The Bourne Identity... which seems to be the mind echoes that this movie is trying to hit quite often. Consequently, although the score doesn’t have that strongly defined set of bass lines and melodies that the Bourne series has, the orchestration and general style of it is definitely, I suspect, trying to remind you of those films on a sub-conscious level. That being said, though, I loved this score and wish the company had chosen to release a CD of it instead of letting it wallow in some “unreleased” list.

The visual aspect of it, though, is very glossy and, for the most part, sterile in it’s big budget portrayal of a bona fide ”sci-fi thriller”. That is to say, it’s grey and white and has the feel of something like the Will Smith vehicle I, Robot or, indeed, the aforementioned Minority Report. I’m not saying this is a bad thing though... I liked it well enough and I think other people might get a kick out of it if only they’d go to the cinema and give it a try.

In summing up I’d say, don’t go expecting a faithful adaptation of either the original movie bearing this name, or indeed, Phil Dick’s original work... it’s dumbed down significantly, for sure. However, if you like futuristic action movies with lots of punching things in it and lots of bad guys who seem to be incapable of accurately aiming their weapons at the main protagonists, then you could do a lot worse than give this one a watch. Give it a gander if you’ve got nothing better to do.