with reviews of
The Whole Wide World
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Destroyer
Red Sonja
Kull the Conqueror
Feature by Carlo
words
and sorcerers, demons and dragons, maidens and minstrels. It can all get quite
silly–small wonder the fantasy genre gets no respect. Yet fantasy boasts an
honorable heritage. British and American fantasy writers can legitimately claim
to be the inheritors of a tradition that dates back to Beowulf and The
Odyssey.
Even in the 20th Century, new fantasy tales have become classics of literature. Few would disagree that J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy is a major work by any standard. Although Tolkein (who wrote decades earlier) was not discovered by mass audiences until late 1960s, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings immediately became part of our cultural heritage and spawned hundreds of copycats. Imitators began to emerge in the late 1970s with Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books, Terry Brooks' Shanarra novels, and Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series. Since then, fantasy fiction has grown in popularity to the point where it far outsells the science fiction with which it often gets lumped. And why not? Fantasy tales have been stirring our imaginations for millennia.
Admittedly, there's a big difference between The Odyssey and The Lord of the Rings and much of the pedestrian schlock clogging bookstore shelves today, but, as the saying goes, ninety percent of everything is crap. If you look past Piers Anthony's umpteenth Xanth novel and David Eddings' latest regurgitation of his best-selling Belgariad, not to mention all the brand-name novels from TSR (the inventors of Dungeons & Dragons), you might stumble across some well-written books almost as memorable as The Lord of the Rings. Sure, most fantasy doesn't purport to address Important Issues about the Human Condition, but sometimes, if you want to escape Important Issues about the Human Condition for just a little while, a fantasy novel can be just the thing.
Unquestionably the most influential figure in contemporary fantasy, Tolkein is logical starting point for anyone new to the genre. He was primarily an influence on "epic" fantasy–examples of which are the brick-sized novels by Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, and Tad Williams, as well as the aforementioned Thomas Covenant and Shanarra books. Other fantasy sub-genres include fairy tales, animal fantasies (e.g., Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, Richard Adams' Watership Down), lost race fantasies (e.g., Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World , Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels), Arthurian fantasy (e.g., Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon), and comic fantasy (e.g., Robert Asprin's Myth series, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt's The Incomplete Enchanter). Finally, there is heroic fantasy. In this subgenre, sometimes called "swords & sorcery," the stories, often quite short, track the exploits of an established hero who is sometimes as dark and ruthless as the villains he fights.
In contrast, epic fantasy is typically about a young naif hurled unexpectedly into a cosmic struggle of good against evil, and who must gradually learn his (or her) heroism. Epic fantasy is much broader in scope and focuses on characters and their development, whereas heroic fantasy is less ambitious, paying less attention to the often thinly-drawn characters and more to the fantastical exploits themselves. The distinction is analogous to the difference between the sweeping Dances with Wolves and the hard-boiled A Fistful of Dollars, two films that have little in common beyond the fact that both are Westerns.
If The Lord of the Rings is the first modern epic fantasy, then the
stories of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) are surely the foremost works of modern
heroic fantasy. Virtually all successful heroic fantasy writers, including Fritz
Leiber (creator of Fafrd & the Grey Mouser) and Michael
Moorcock (author of the Elric stories), have cited Howard as a major influence.
Even in his own time, Howard earned the admiration of other prominent figures
in the field of the fantastical, including master of arcane terror H.P. Lovecraft,
who corresponded with Howard. 
Although Howard's stories have reached people everywhere, Howard himself never traveled far from his home in rural Texas, where he lived until he killed himself at 30 years of age. Howard's immaturity and parochialism show plainly in his prose, which is sometimes racist, and definitely sexist. (While regrettable, Howard's casual racism is not mean-spirited and should be viewed in the context of his time; a more enlightened worldview from someone of his narrow background would have been improbable.) His stories are not profound, and they're not for everyone. Full of non-stop action and scantily-clad women, they will probably appeal most to teen-aged boys. But Howard did possess a raw talent. One can criticize his comic-book style and ornamental females, but Howard had an undeniable gift for inventing unearthly scenarios. His monsters and demons are particularly vivid, brought to life by hyperbolic, colorful descriptions. More importantly, Howard was a natural storyteller.
Howard himself counted Lovecraft, Harold Lamb, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Jack
London among his influences, and his themes and protagonists are reminiscent
of more respected works of other early 20th Century authors such London and
Ernest Hemingway. Heavily influenced by Nietzsche and Social Darwinism, these
writers tended toward stories about characters with uncommon abilities and strength,
glorifying vigor and having little use for the weak. It is indeed ironic, therefore,
that Howard, like London and Hemingway, chose the "coward's way" out of his
own life by committing suicide. Perhaps his stories betrayed a self-loathing
that no amount of success could dismiss. Perhaps Howard's heroes expressed how
he wished he could be, and he could never live up to his own standards. Howard
himself was by all accounts tall, handsome, and devoted to sports and exercise,
but also something of a social misfit–a moody, hot-tempered loner overly devoted
to his mother, whose terminal illness was the catalyst for his suicide. According
to fellow Texan and Howard expert L.
Sprague de Camp, Howard was "maladjusted to the point of psychosis"–though
schoolteacher
Novalyne Price, who knew Howard well when he was alive, wrote a memoir strongly
disputing this characterization. (For more on Price, see The
Whole Wide World, below, or visit that movie's official
site.)
One can only wonder how much Howard's writing would have matured had he lived past thirty. Even in the short amount of time he gave himself, he produced a considerable body of work–and not just fantasies, but also crime stories, sports stories, Westerns, and poetry. He sold his first yarns (as he called them) to Weird Tales, a noted pulp magazine, when he was only eighteen. Over the next 12 years, Weird Tales would publish the majority of Howard's stories, but others appeared in similar publications, such as Argosy-All Story Weekly and Fight Stories.
Conan, an indomitable barbarian from a fictional prehistory Howard called "The Hyborian Age," is Howard's most famous creation. Conan first appeared in 1932 in Weird Tales and bore a marked resemblance to an earlier Howard barbarian hero, Kull, whose stories did not sell as well. Despite the characters' similarities, Conan took off and became Howard's best seller. Howard completed a total of twenty-one Conan stories, seventeen of which were published in Weird Tales between 1932 and 1936. The stories first appeared in book form in 1950, with Conan the Conqueror (Gnome Press). Gnome would publish an additional four volumes of Howard's Conan stories, all edited by de Camp. Meanwhile, with the help of two colleagues (Lin Carter and Björn Nyberg), de Camp began polishing the many story fragments and outlines Howard left behind into final drafts. The first volume of Howard stories co-written by de Camp, Tales of Conan, was published by Gnome Press in 1955.
In the 1960s, de Camp and Carter undertook a more ambitious project–a twelve volume paperback set from Lancer Books (Sphere Books in Britain) consisting of Howard's original tales, stories based on material found in Howard's papers, and original works, all organized chronologically. Not surprisingly, the series is of spotty quality (Conan the Buccaneer, a full-length novel containing nothing by Howard, is ghastly), but it sold well, helped by Frank Frazetta's popular cover art.
In the 1970s, the Conan tales were republished in their original form by Berkley Books and editor Karl Edward Wagner, who fired off amusingly pompous denunciations of "pastiche Conan" (i.e., the de Camp-edited books) in the introduction to each text. Meanwhile, a handful of original Conan novels (by de Camp, Carter, and others) began appearing separately from Bantam Books. Bantam, then Tor Books, continued publishing Conan novels by lesser and lesser-known authors with greater and greater frequency. By this time, Conan had become a franchise: Conan Properties, Inc. Dozens of books, mostly by undistinguished writers, can now be reliably found in the "crap" section of your local bookstore, right by the Star Wars and Star Trek novelizations. Of these, the stories by future best-seller Robert Jordan are among the most legible. As for the original Howard tales... they are currently out of print.
Conan was the first of Howard's heroes to be adapted for the movies. In 1996, Howard himself arrived on the big screen in The Whole Wide World.
| Grade: B+ | Review by Carlo |
All fled, all done
So lift me up on the pyre;
The feast is over
The lamps expire
obert
E. Howard left this note when he shot himself on June 13, 1936, at the age of
thirty. The words typify the volatile writer–self-pitying and extravagantly
self-absorbed, but they are touching and articulately simple nonetheless, with
the hint of some forgotten, ancient time. The poem is a fitting epitaph for
a legendary barbarian warrior, like his creation Conan. But Howard was no mythic
hero. He was a writer of modest pulp who spent his brief, prolific career living
with his parents in Texas, never traveling farther than New Orleans.
A young Texas schoolteacher named Novalyne Price may have known Howard better
than anyone outside of his family. It took her fifty years to finally complete
One Who Walked Alone, a memoir of their stillborn romance. In 1996 director
Dan Ireland and co-producer/star Vincent D'Onofrio (who bears a striking resemblance
to the real Howard) brought the unconventional love story to the screen as The
Whole Wide World. 
The film opens in the early 1930s when Price, played by winsomely plucky Renée Zellwegger, first meets Howard (D'Onofrio), an infamous local oddball. Their encounter is brief, but Price, an aspiring writer herself, seeks him out again to extract advice. Her friends, including prim, moralizing Enid (Helen Cates), warn her to stay away from purveyors of pornography. Making matters more difficult, Howard's reclusive mother blocks access to Howard and won't pass along messages. As Price negotiates these obstacles, we see the first display of her stubbornness and willingness to ignore the opinions of others, at least in part, and the first hint that something about the Howard household is dysfunctional.
When Howard finally receives her, he turns out to be a loud, overbearing man, but with a certain rough charm that captivates Price, despite behavior that would send women like Enid fleeing for a Bible and an exorcist. (Dana Carvey chose the name ‘Enid' for his Church Lady. Are sermonizing prudes always named Enid?) Haltingly, fitfully, a relationship develops. The two are irresistibly attracted to one another, but they don't quite know what to make of each other. Although Price is no prude–she takes in stride Howard's bluster and his stories' racy content–she is still a church-going conventional woman at heart, whereas Howard scorns the local community that shuns him. She wants him to wear suits when they go out; he doesn't understand why they can't just drive around and shoot the breeze.
Their emotions confuse them, and Howard eventually can't resist sabotaging
the budding love affair. He can't be tied down, he says, and he must care for
his sickly mother. When Price appears to move on, Howard characteristically
wallows in self pity, saying things like, "To make life worth living, a man
or a woman, you gotta have a great love or a great cause. I have neither." Will
they continue to drift apart, or will they finally give into their love for
one another? Or will their relationship transmute into something else? And what
of Howard's peculiar relationship with his mother? 
The magic of The Whole Wide World lies in the authoritative detail with which it realizes Howard and Price. We have no trouble believing that the two characters existed exactly as D'Onofrio and Zellwegger portray them. It must have been strongly tempting to overplay the tempestuous Howard, who roars his stories out loud as he types them, but D'Onofrio holds back enough to allow room to explore Howard's complexities, forging a multilayered character who holds our interest for the length of the movie. Zellwegger is a perfect choice for Novalyne Price, bringing an ideal combination of dainty femininity and strength to the role. She keeps the relationship in balance by not allowing D'Onofrio's Howard to bowl her over, which is crucially important to the credibility of what transpires between them.
Director Dan Ireland (who worked with D'Onofrio again in the well-acted but odious The Velocity of Gary) renders the story and the characters more vivid with a handful of well-placed directorial tricks. When Howard describes Conan to Price, for example, Ireland slowly zooms in on D'Onofrio's excited face and adds sounds of swordplay and battle to the soundtrack. Such touches are effective because they are infrequent. For the most part, The Whole Wide World is an understated film, with a gentle score that mostly avoids you-must-feel-this-way-now passages of swelling violins, although at the end Ireland and composer Hans Zimmer can't help themselves.
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An intriguing scene in the second half of the movie deepens and illuminates Howard and Price's conflicted relationship. Price is going out of town for some time to study, and before she leaves, Howard drives her to an abandoned mansion. He asks her to suppose she has come out there to watch the sunset, and as she is doing so, a handsome Indian steps out of the trees. It's a simple premise typical of Howard's stories. "Now what you'd do about it would be the yarn that you would write," he tells her. Price responds that she can picture the sunset and the Indian, but no more. "That's as far as I go–that's where the story ends."
Price (we can surmise) thinks Howard is speaking metaphorically about their relationship. "The next thing you know, I'd be telling him to wash off the war paint, and get a good suit of clothes, and accompany me to Sunday school," she continues. When Howard explains that he has been thinking of her dream of being a writer, she realizes that not just Howard's moodiness and diffidence have been stumbling blocks, but also her conventionality and lack of imagination. Perhaps what's partly responsible for the problems in their relationship is also responsible for her difficulty in writing. None of this is explained verbally, however. Viewers are left to decode the exchange for themselves. Price simply considers Howard's words for a moment, then thanks him for telling her "what is wrong" with her writing.
Fifty years after Howard's death, Novalyne Price finally took his advice. She had something to write about after all. She wrote about the unrefined man who had stepped out of the dusty Texas plains and into her life. She wrote about Howard, profoundly troubled, but also passionate and kindhearted beneath his bluster. The irony is that Howard himself may have been a more interesting character than any of his creations.
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| Grade: B- | Review by Carlo |
ne of the
first of the mostly execrable wave of 1980s swords-and-sorcery flicks, Conan
the Barbarian is one of the best. Conan the Barbarian is also notable
for making Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. Normally a laughable actor, Ah-nold
was born for two roles. One is the robotic Terminator, obviously, and the second,
Robert E. Howard's imperturbable muscle-bound bruiser, Conan.
We first meet Conan as a child in his remote mountain village, soon attacked by marauders riding under a banner depicting a two-headed snake. They are after the village's steel–a rare commodity unknown to most of the world. Led by evil priest Thulsa Doom (an outstanding and oddly understated James Earl Jones), the pillagers massacre Conan's family and sell Conan into slavery. After years of hard labor, Conan becomes a gladiator and wins his freedom. Now a thief and a vagabond, Conan sets out to avenge his family, picking up a few companions along the way: statuesque Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), ferrety Subotai (Gerry Lopez), and a diminutive wizard (Mako).
Although the plot is not based on any of Howard's original tales, fans of Conan will find familiar events depicted. For example, the scene where Conan finds a sword in an underground vault is taken from The Thing in the Crypt. Conan's crucifixion will also seem familiar–he was similarly tormented in A Witch Shall Be Born. Valeria bears the name of the heroine of Red Nails–one of Howard's few females who held their own against Howard's lusty men. (Note: The Thing in the Crypt, from Conan, the first volume of the Lancer Press series, is not a Howard original.)
While not exactly refined literature, the melodramatic, jingoistic style (what else would you expect from a screenplay co-written by Oliver Stone?) suits the material. The material itself is fraught with problems, however. The plot coheres poorly. Too much is unexplained, like the purpose of the giant wheel Conan spends years pushing as a slave. Other things are too obviously convenient, like Conan running into a witch (Cassandra Gaviola), who offers information in exchange for sex, during which she unaccountably turns into a demoness. She tells Conan, "They said you would come." Who said that? Why did they say that?
There are promising opportunities lost as well. During one action sequence, Thulsa Doom metamorphoses into a giant snake, but the snake never enters the fray. It simply... departs. Nor does it ever appear again. Conan's final confrontation with Thulsa Doom is subdued and anticlimactic.
The biggest problem is that half the players cannot act. At all. There are members of the cast so wooden that they would likely have trouble behaving drunk if they imbibed ten shots of vodka. When Schwarzenegger speaks... well, let's just say he shouldn't speak. The same goes for Gerry Lopez. As the production notes explain, Schwarzenegger (a former Mr. Universe and seven-time Mr. Olympia), Gerry Lopez (a champion surfer), and Sandahl Bergman (a long-time dancer prominently featured in All that Jazz) were cast for their athleticism, not their thespian abilities. (The same is true of former NFL star Ben Davidson, who plays Thulsa Doom's right-hand man.) They spent four months training in Kendo and swordplay before shooting began in Spain so that director John Milius would be able to minimize stunt doubling. In contrast to their agility handling swords, they handle their lines like lead bricks. Only Bergman can act, a little. She won the Golden Globe for Best New Female Star for Conan the Barbarian, in fact, but she would not translate the award into a distinguished acting career, spending it so far in third-rate movies and straight-to-video features with prurient themes.
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Several members of the supporting cast also strike wrong notes, including Mako, nominated for the 1966 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award™ for The Sand Pebbles. Any Oscar-caliber skills Mako may possess are not in evidence here. His ill-conceived, penny-ante wizard, who also doubles as the narrator, talks funny and is not much more than another plot convenience. Howard's Conan would never have had anything to do with wizards.
The wonder of Conan the Barbarian is Milius' ability to work around his daunting obstacles–some of which, as co-writer, Milius was responsible for creating in the first place. If half your cast can't act, well then–don't let them speak! Milius uses a narrator (unfortunately it's Mako) and entrusts all the key monologues to actors who know what to do with them–long-time Hollywood heavy William Smith (as Conan's father), Max Von Sydow (as King Osric), and James Earl Jones. Of the three heroes, only Bergman is allowed an meaningful speech. Otherwise, Milius eschews dialogue and lets the action, images, and music do the talking. While it would be surprising if all the spoken words amounted to more than a dozen printed pages, Milius delivers not one, but three climactic encounters between Conan and Thulsa Doom's minions.
The result is a sweeping melodrama of vengeance, featuring rich sets, broad vistas, and long sequences of wordless action propelled by Basil Poledouris' big score. Early in the film, for example, there is an entirely non-verbal confrontation between Thulsa Doom and Conan's mother (super-model Nadiuska), in which Thulsa Doom calms her–perhaps ensorcels her–with his mere gaze. It's a scene that depends wholly on James Earl Jones' piercingly compelling and strangely melancholy eyes, Milius' shooting angles, and the emotions conveyed by the music.
Though some will find its theatrics laughable, Conan the Barbarian is a stirringly grandiose music-video epic–seriously flawed, but every choice Milius makes emphasizes the film's strengths and draws attention away from its weaknesses. Howard aficionados have complained that the overwrought tone is not faithful to Howard's straightforward pulp, but sometimes, to be faithful to the spirit of the material, you cannot be faithful to the letter of it. Milius' larger-than-life style breathes life into Howard's larger-than-life hero, to stride through an ancient world lost in the sands of time. Which happens to look a lot like Spain.
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| Grade: D- | Review by Carlo |
his misbegotten
sequel probably deserves an F, but because it's not quite the nadir of the swords
& sorcery genre, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. At least Ah-nold
Schwarzenegger is a natural Conan, and Wilt Chamberlain, while it would be a
stretch to describe him as an actor, is appropriately large and monosyllabic.
Everything else about Conan the Destroyer is unrelentingly terrible.
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Let's start with the rest of the cast. Ugh. The inept Olivia D'Abo clashes atonally with her supposedly ancient surroundings, Tracey Walter, and Conan the Barbarian holdover Mako are painfully unfunny funny sidekicks, and the very idea of Grace Jones is pathetically dated. The clumsy performances, however, are Oscar-worthy compared to the comically cheesy special effects. One of Conan's demonic opponents turns out to be a guy in a monkey suit–in fact, not even a whole suit, but only a rubber Halloween mask. Oooh, scary! And the scene where Jehnna is spirited away by a huge bird made of mist? I've seen better animation in Sinbad the Sailor or Land of the Lost. As for Richard Fleischer's direction, it can only be described as disinterested–the complete opposite of Milius' vigorous, engaged style.
The plot is run-of-the-mill swords & sorcery stuff, lacking the epic scope of Conan the Barbarian. Conan is hired by a Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) to escort her young charge, Princess Jehnna (D'Abo) on a treasure-hunting expedition. Only the Princess can touch the treasure sought by Taramis, but because Taramis doesn't trust Conan with either the treasure or Jehnna's virginity, she sends along the captain of her guards (Chamberlain) with instructions to kill Conan as soon as the mission is accomplished. Afterwards, Taramis plans to sacrifice both the virginal Jehnna and the treasure to resurrect an ancient demon. You can guess the rest.
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| Grade: F | Review by Carlo |
n
Red Sonja, several elements seem to be in place for a better effort than
the lackluster Conan the Destroyer. Despite the lower budget, the production
values are actually improved, thanks to a handful of familiar Italian names.
(Red Sonja was shot entirely in Italy.) Incredible though it may seem,
Federico Fellini's usual cinematographer (Giuseppe Rotunno) and art director
(Danilo Donati) are attached to the project. With some exceptions (in particular
a set ripped off from The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger" video), they
approximate the epic sweep of the original Conan the Barbarian. Composer
Ennio Morricone (The Mission; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) continues
the tradition of quality scoring established in the first two Howard adaptations.
Unfortunately, the score is the most exciting thing in the movie, and the opening
credits are the most watchable part. Invest five minutes, and you've seen everything
in Red Sonja worth seeing. The rest of the movie involves Sonja's quest
for revenge against Queen Gedren, who has murdered Sonja's family and allowed
her soldiers to rape her.
It would take too long to list all that ails Red Sonja, but three things in particular stand out. First, and most egregious, is Swedish model Brigitte Nielsen in her U.S. film debut, with her fifteen minutes of fame still ahead of her. She makes co-star Ah-nold Schwarzenegger look like an Oscar™ contender. Delivering her lines in an accented monotone, Nielsen rarely changes expression, and the few times she does, she is funnier than any of the intentional comedy (more on that in a moment). Her action sequences are similarly stiff. Nielsen does look good, however–I'll give her that–particularly because Red Sonja predates her eccentrically large breast implants. Although a bit under-aerobicized by today's exigent standards for female action heroines, she is impressively lithe and statuesque.
Second is the presence of Ernie Reyes, Jr., as irritating ten-year old Prince Tarn. He and loyal servant Falkon (Paul L. Smith) represent the comic relief, but there's no relief from the comic relief. Imagine an extremely petulant, spoiled version of Indiana Jones' sidekick Short Round in Temple of Doom, and you get the idea. In fact, that's probably where the writers got the idea themselves. Heaven forbid they should think up anything original.
Third is the decision to bring back director Richard Fleischer, responsible for Conan the Destroyer. He wastes the efforts of the Italian contingent by turning in an even more lackadaisical directorial effort. There's even a boom mike visible in one scene. Fleischer could have directed this movie from his living room via speaker phone and achieved the same result. At the least, Fleischer should have been more exacting with Nielsen! Make her work on her acting a little–if you do enough takes, she's bound to deliver her lines halfway decently sooner or later, even if only by accident. A novice director could have elicited an equally evocative performance from a tree stump.
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What is Ah-nold doing in this thing? He was contractually obligated to make a third Conan movie, but once his movie career took off, he was reluctant to do so. Executive producer Dino de Laurentiis magnanimously allowed Ah-nold to work off his obligation by appearing in a supporting role as Kalidor in Red Sonja. Unfortunately, Ah-nold is not well-suited to playing a suave romancer–he really should have come back as Conan. It's impossible to discuss the chemistry between him and Nielsen because there isn't any, and their interactions are written so clumsily that the dialogue is reminiscent of a particularly bad episode of Hercules or Xena. Hoping perhaps to recapture the success of Conan the Barbarian, the producers recycled not only the plot, but also the heroine, Sandahl Bergman, who plays evil lesbian Queen Gedren; she does a tolerable job with the role. (Note to self: Watch out for those evil lesbian queens!)
To the extent that it is set in Howard's Hyborian Age, Red Sonja is based loosely on Howard's works, but Howard never wrote about a character named Sonja. Rather, Sonja is a spinoff character invented by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney, who wrote six Red Sonja novels "based on Howard's Hyborian Age" for Ace Books in the early 1980s, by which time Conan had devolved into a brand name under which all manner of putrid drivel was published. Perhaps Sonja was intended as a feminist counterbalance to Howard's sexism, but with the camera leering at its scantily-clad heroine and the evil lesbians, Red Sonja is not much of a feminist manifesto. Sonja proclaims that she does not need any man, but of course she does need Kalidor in the end.
Difficult to find in the video stores today, Red Sonja was quickly and justly forgotten immediately after its release. The history of cinema is no worse for it, but it's a shame nonetheless, because Red Sonja could easily have been better than Conan the Destroyer. Instead, the de Laurentiis family and Richard Fleischer deployed another dud.
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| Grade: F | Review by Carlo |
efore
there was Conan, there was Kull–Robert E. Howard's original barbarian from a
prehistoric snowy wilderness. Both Kull and Conan are strong, macho demigods,
adept with a sword (or in Kull's case, an axe) and irresistible to the seminude
ladies. But Kull the Conqueror, a transparent attempt to cash in on the
success of TV's Hercules (also starring Kevin Sorbo) and Xena: Warrior
Princess, is another uninspired interpretation of Howard's material. In
fact, it's Robert E. Howard in name only, because Kull, with its made-for-television
production values and anachronistic jokes, is more similar to Hercules
than to anything Howard ever wrote. Instead of evoking an ancient time of swords
and magic, Kull's aluminum weapons and Styrofoam sets bring to mind...
well... aluminum and Styrofoam.
If heavy-metal guitars and swordplay seem like a natural fit, then you might like Kull the Conqueror, but chances are you won't. The story might not have been so bad if they had spent a little more time developing the plot, in which all the exposition is thrown into a caption and in which Kull (Sorbo) improbably goes from unemployed vagabond to King in the space of ten minutes. Never once does the hopelessly contemporary Sorbo make you forget the 20th century, neither in this movie nor on television, and villain Thomas Ian Griffith isn't any improvement.
The rest of the cast fares a little better. Native American actor Litefoot is more successful in leaving behind the 1990s. Tia Carrere, who at one time had an acting career, vamps it up as an evil sorceress back from the dead, and romantic interest Karina Lombard manages to keep her dignity–no mean feat. Another bright spot–sort of–is Harvey Fierstein, ludicrous as he sashays around as a slave merchant who ostensibly has an eye for the ladies. However, the supporting cast fails to save the movie–their efforts are overwhelmed by Kull's inexorable awfulness.
You could argue that director John Nicollela never intended to be faithful to Howard's stories, that all along he envisioned a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek adventure in the style of Hercules and Xena, and you could argue that he succeeds. But those blithely silly shows are worth watching (if they are worth watching at all) for exactly one reason: the confidently, sublimely campy Lucy Lawless. Certainly not boring Sorbo. There's no Lucy Lawless in Kull. Without her, or someone like her, Kull is neither compelling or funny. Aside from anything that comes out of Fierstein's mouth ("Oaaoooh, Kull!"), there is exactly one amusing line in the entire movie. Should you be tempted to rent Kull the Conqueror to find it, allow me save you the trouble. Here it is:
Litefoot:
"Your wife is over three thousand years old!"
Sorbo: [befuddled] "But she said she was nineteen!"
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The Whole Wide World images © 1999 by Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. Conan images © 1981, 1984 by Universal Pictures and the Dino de Laurentiis Corporation. Red Sonja image © 1999 MGM Home Entertainment Inc. and Turner Entertainment Co. Kull the Conqueror image © 1997 Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved. |
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