Conan the Destroyer

Plot synopsis:
Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his companion, the thief Malak (Tracey Walter), are confronted by Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) of Shadizar. She tests their combat ability with several of her guards. Satisfied, she tells Conan that she has a quest for him. He refuses her, but when she promises to resurrect his lost love, Valeria, Conan agrees to the quest. He is to escort the Queen's niece, Jehnna (Olivia d'Abo), a virgin, who is destined to restore the jeweled horn of the dreaming god Dagoth; a magic gem must first be retrieved that will locate the horn. Conan and Malak are joined by Bombaata (Wilt Chamberlain), the captain of Taramis's guard. Bombaata has secret orders to kill Conan once the gem is obtained.
Because the gem is secured in the fortress of a powerful wizard, Conan seeks the help of his friend, Akiro (Mako), the Wizard of the Mounds. Akiro has been captured by a tribe of cannibals, and must first be rescued. Afterward, the adventurers encounter Zula (Grace Jones), a powerful bandit warrior being tortured by vengeful villagers. Freeing Zula at Jehnna's request, Conan accepts the indebted warrior's offer to join their quest.
The adventurers travel to the castle of Toth-Amon (Pat Roach) where the gem is located. As they camp for the night, the wizard takes the form of a giant bird and kidnaps Jehnna. The others wake in time to see the bird enter the castle. Sneaking in through a water gate, they search the castle, but Conan is separated from the group and the others are forced to watch him battle a fierce man-beast. Conan mortally wounds the creature, which is revealed as another form of Toth-Amon. With the wizard's death, the castle begins to disintegrate, forcing the group's hasty retreat. They are ambushed by Taramis's guards, but drive them off. Bombaata feigns ignorance about the attack. The gem reveals the location of the jeweled horn. Jehnna expresses romantic interest in Conan, but he rebuffs her and declares his devotion to Valeria.
They reach an ancient temple where the horn is secured. Jehnna obtains it while Akiro deciphers engravings. He learns that Jehnna will be ritually sacrificed to awaken Dagoth. They are attacked by the priests who guard the horn. A secret exit is revealed, but Bombaata blocks the others' escape and seizes Jehnna. Despite this treachery, Conan and his allies escape from the priests and trek to Shadizar to rescue Jehnna.
Malak shows them a secret route to the throne room. Conan confronts Bombaata and kills him in combat. Zula impales the Grand Vizier (Jeff Corey) before he can sacrifice Jehnna. Because Bombaata and the Vizier were "impure sacrifices", the rising Dagoth (André the Giant) becomes distorted from a beautiful human form into a monstrous entity. Dagoth kills Taramis, then attacks Conan. Zula and Malak join the fight, but are effortlessly swept aside by the entity. Akiro tells Conan that the horn is the monster's power source, Conan leaps onto it's back and tears out Dagoth's horn, weakening the creature enough to kill him.
Afterwards, the newly crowned Queen Jehnna offers each of her companions a place in her new court: Zula will be the new captain of the guard, Akiro the queen's advisor, and Malak the court jester. Jehnna offers Conan marriage and the opportunity to rule the kingdom with her, but he declines and departs to find further adventures and his own place in the world.

Tags: murder, cult, fantasy, alternate history, violence

Review:
The original, classic "Conan the Barbarian" was a hit, but the Hollywood bigwigs decided they could get x-amount more money if they made a more family-friendly sequel, thereby opening the franchise to the lucrative kid's market (never mind that, for as long as there have been "restrictive" movie ratings, kids have known how to get to see the movies they want).
Olivia d'Abo is just plain miscast: it's like she's a marker that should read "Insert More Interesting Character in Second Draft."  Arnold Schwarzenegger does a competent job as Conan, but we don't see the raw power and brute force of the first movie.
But Universal, seeing star Arnold Schwarzenegger as appealing more to younger audiences, did not like the R-rated combination of gore, sex, and machismo philosophy of the first film, so Milius was unceremoniously dumped, and more family-friendly action director Richard Fleischer was brought in to helm CONAN THE DESTROYER.
While all this succeeded in garnering a PG rating, the end result was less Robert Howard's barbarian, more the generic B-movie hero seen in the dozens of imitations CONAN THE BARBARIAN had inspired.The plot is simple; Cruel but beautiful Queen Taramis (SUPERMAN I and II villainess Sarah Douglas) promises to revive Conan's dead love, Valeria, if he'll lead virgin Princess Jehnna (Olivia d'Abo) and her bodyguard (basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain), on a quest to steal a giant diamond, and use it to recover a horn that will bring god Dagoth to life.
Joined by his sidekick, Malak, a wizard (Mako), and a female warrior (Grace Jones), the group faces the usual array of monsters, wizards, and enemy soldiers, and defeats them all, succeeding in the quest...but Conan discovers, nearly too late, that the bodyguard has been ordered to murder him, after the horn is retrieved, and that Jehnna is to be sacrificed as part of the process of reviving Dagoth...While the fight between Conan and Toth-Amon (Pat Roach), in a hall of mirrors, is well-staged and exciting, much of the rest of the film seems flat, with one scene, of Conan blind drunk at a campfire, ridiculously out of character and silly.
The villains are also not as menacing.Having said that it was good to see Grace Jones and Sarah Douglas and also Conan's companions had good lines and were very funny at times.As a side note I found the adjective 'Destroyer' in the title quite misleading and unfortunate.
Stupid But Fun. If you're looking for a deep, interesting and layered fantasy flick which makes sense and has an original story, go rent out the first Conan movie.
Arnold Schwarzenegger makes the most of the very silly lines he's given, Tracey Walter proves a capable if somewhat pointless comic foil, and the irony of casting Wilt Chamberlain as a protector of a young princess' virginity is hilarious.Mako hams it up, Grace Jones takes it all too seriously and Olivia D'Abo makes for a good childlike princess because she was 16 when the film got made.
This time Conan with the help his partner (Tracey Walter), a magician (Mako, who repeats his role as wizard of ¨Conan the Barbarian ¨ by John Milius and written by Oliver Stone), an androgynous sidekick( Grace Jones who steals the show ), as a club-wielding tomboy, a giant hoodlum (Wilt Chamberlain) and a virgin princess(Olivia DÁbo) undergo on a risked trip to find a treasure whose sacred jewel contains a magic horn that relives a monster (manufactured by Carlo Rambaldi : ET) and leading a vibrant ending.This violent following packs noisy action, full-blooded adventure, thrills, crude scenes and rip-roaring fights.
But there is still Arnold, the wonderfull sets, the powerful Basil Poledouris theme, and a cast of Grace Jones, Sarah Douglas, Tracey Walter, Mako, Wilt Chamberlain and Olivier D'Abo, who some how manage to make this resemble an episode of the 60's Batman T.V Series than a piece of Robert Howard soaked fantasy.The fighting scenes a re good and there is a fantastic scene in wich Conan is trapped in a cave of mirrors terrorised by Red-Hooded monsters.
FunWith an aesthetic and atmosphere closer to Conan's comics, whoever says no, has not read them in his life, because in John Millius, despite being a masterpiece, many concepts were invented that had nothing to do with the universe of Howard, mixing them with the Scandinavian mythology, since the director is a lover of the stories of vikíngos.In this, what a veteran Richard Fleischer offered us, aged 70 or so when he shot it, is an entertaining adventure and fantasy film, full of action and sense of humor and showing those huge and incredible kingdoms that were shown to us in the comics.Schwarzenegger is here much more active, speaks more, interacts more with the characters around him and also shows his most comedic side.
His partner and servant Malak, played by the great Tracey Walter, one of those actors that you see everywhere, is the one that carries the most comical and carefree part of the film.The gigantic Mombaata, played by the legendary basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, one of the 50 best in history, according to the NBA, the bodyguard of the young naive and somewhat annoying princess Jehnna, Olivia d Abbo.Sarah Douglas, is the beautiful and evil, or perhaps manipulated by the priests of the cult of Dagoth, Taramis, queen of Shadizar, and it still hurts me to see how badly wasted she is, since her character was for much more.Later on they will be joined by the late actor Mako, as the wizard Akiro, the only actor with Schwarzenegger and the camel, who repeat in the sequel.
However the setting in that wonderful country that is Mexico, with its deserts and valleys, is fascinating and fits perfectly into the universe of the hero.It is true that it is not better than the first, but it is that the approach is different anyway.In the first one was to present a character, with a completely adult tone, it was not even for children, which caused that it was crushed by criticism, which labeled it as pseudo-pornographic and made by a psychopath, for a future trilogy that never took place, and here what we have is an adventure film, entertaining, light, very funny, and that even with its defects it is superior to most of the clunkers, of the genre of sword and witchcraft, of that no doubt..
The PG rating doesn't harm the tone of the film much, it's still relatively bloody, but apparently Richard Fleischer shot it as a hard R before the producers cut it down.The story this time has Conan go on a mission for the seductive Queen Taramis (she can be my queen ANY day, and look for a quick glimpse of her bush in the first Shadizar Castle scene).
And so with his ragtag group of companions: Malak (a comedy sidekick, but what happened to Subotai from the original?), Zula (Grace Jones, wearing no more than a couple of inches of leather floss), Akiro (Mako, the only returning cast member from the original), Bombaata (on a secret mission to kill Conan) and the virgin Princess Jehnna, Conan takes off on his mission.The first film was serious but this one plays more like Labyrinth than Barbarian.
It really should have been like Bond, with a film coming out every 2 years.Conan the Destroyer is guiltless fun with goofier characters, sillier dialogue, clumsier action, and loinier cloths.
i have seen the first one....it is really great...but i could not intending to watch this again and again...because it was quite slow and boring....but it is a powerful movie indeed!!but this sequel...Conan the destroyer is definitely far much much more better than the original !!!
Sequels are rarely as good as the original, and with a film like Conan The Barbarian to live up to this one had a hard time from the start.And yes, it's not as sophisticated a film as the original, but no it is not a bad film.Running along like a more typical S&S film, the emphasis is more on a runaway action film rather than the screen opera of the original.
It's all bull though, as the Queen intends to kill Conan and friends once their task is through and sacrifice virgin Jehnna to the god Dagoth.This sequel is OK but nowhere near as good as the first film.
Well the plot basically has Conan on a quest in search of that seemingly illusive and rare item in this film  a decent script.Accompanying him are a rat tag bunch of loons including a double crossing heavy, a dumb blonde bird with a bad English accent, the Chinese wizard from the first film, Grace Jones (this just gets funnier folks!) and a desperately unfunny comedy sidekick thief who serves no useful purpose whatsoever and should have been left on the cutting room floor.Add to this some atrocious editing and cinematography plus the cut and shut job on the recycled soundtrack from the first Conan movie and you have this utter turkey.Even the sword fight scenes, a strength of the original, where badly scripted and edited and let this film down enormously.And that is before we have even mentioned the dreadful crystal castle that creaks and groans for no adequately explored reason  either that or it has a serious termite problem.
Surrounded by the talent in this film you don't notice how bad he is as often.High marks are scored by Olivia D'Abo as the impudent Princess Jehnna, Sarah Douglas as the sexy,evil queen, and Mako in a comic turn as the Wizard and the stories narrator.
Add Tracy Walters and you have a fine supporting cast.Grace Jones and WIolt Chamberlain add nothing to the film except a bit of visual diversity, Jones sneers a lot and Wilt just isn't much of an actor,although he comes off better than Schwarzenegger.
Arnie is charismatic but the fact that he has more dialogue here than before does show his limitations as an overall actor, Grace Jones does little more than be sexy and hiss and fight, Tracey Walter is annoying with grating catchphrases, Olivia D'Abo is cute but hopelessly miscast and Wilt Chamberlain may have a towering presence but his acting is laughable.
Conan The Destroyer (1984) Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Tracey Walter, Mako, Sarah Douglas, Olivia d'Abo, Pat Roach, Jeff Corey, Sven-Ole Thorsen, André the Giant and Ferdy Mayne Directed By: Richard Fleischer Review THE MOST POWERFUL LEGEND OF ALL IS BACK IN A NEW ADVENTURE.
Conan the Destroyer features the hero (Arnold Schwarzenegger) as he is commissioned by the queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) to safely escort a teen princess (Olivia D'Abo) and her powerful bodyguard (Wilt Chamberlain) to a far away castle to retrieve the magic Horn of Dagon.
Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) leads a ragtag group of adventurers on a quest for a princess.When John Milius, director of "Conan the Barbarian", proved to be unavailable to direct the sequel, Dino De Laurentiis suggested Richard Fleischer to his daughter Raffaella De Laurentiis, who was producing Conan the Destroyer.
With his team of companions: Malak (Tracey Walter), Zula (Grace Jones, wearing no more than a couple of inches of leather floss), Akiro (Mako) he was the only returning cast member from the original film, Bombaata (Wilt Chamberlain) on a secret mission to kill Conan and the virgin Princess Jehnna (Olivia d'Abo), Conan takes off on his mission.
Conan the Destroyer is a 1984 American sword and sorcery/adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mako Iwamatsu reprising their roles as Conan and Akiro the wizard, respectively.
The cast also includes Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Tracey Walter and Olivia d'Abo. It is the sequel to Conan the Barbarian.
The powerful hero Conan (Schwarzenegger) has been commissioned by evil Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) to safely escort a teen princess (Olivia D'Abo) and her bodyguard (Wilt Chamberlain) to the magic Horn of Dagon.
9/10 Score: A- Studio: Universal Pictures, Dino De Laurentiis Company Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Mako, Tracey Walter, Olivia d'Abo, Sarah Douglas Director Richard Fleischer Producer: Raffaella De Laurentiis Screenplay: Stanley Mann Story: Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway Rated: PG Running Time: 1 Hrs. 43 Mins.
Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) offers Conan the barbarian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to bring back his love Valeria back from the dead.
I never was much a fan of the original film "Conan the Barbarian", but director Richard Fleischer's ramshackle sequel while not as epic or grand in structure somewhat appealed to me more.
While in the first movie you had such great characters as Thulsa Doom and Valeria, who you truly cared about, here we have an annoying princess called Jehnma who makes you wish the bad guys would succeed in their mission.On its own Conan the Destroyed is a decent action movie but compared to the masterpiece that was Conan the Barbarian it is not even worth watching..
this sequel to "Conan The Barbarian" is a pretty decent movie,in my mind.it has as much action as the first one,but the story is better in my opinion.it is a bit hard to follow.at least i thought it was.the tone of the movie seems lighter than the first,and there is more humour.i also liked the fact the "Conan" was shown as being human,and not invincible.i thought his main adversary was a great choice for the strength of Conan and he could not beat it by brawn alone.there are also some great characters for Conan's traveling companions,who actually were very helpful to Conan.the one thing i did not like is the inclusion of Grace Jones.to me,the woman is much too scary to be on any screen or even seen by the public.i thought she added nothing to the movie and her role was pointless.she also scares the sh*t out of me.however,i thought the movie was good enough to overcome that huge casting blunder.in fact,in spite of that fact,in my opinion "Conan The Destroyer" manages to be a better movie than the first Conan movie.this is just my opinion of course.For me,"Conan The Destroyer" is an 8.5/10.
Evil Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas, Ursa of the Superman films) offers to resurrect Valeria in return that Conan accompany virgin princess Jehnna (Olivai D'Abo) on a mission to acquire the this key artifact thing that will resurrect an evil god of some sort.
Arnold is fun to watch - though he should have kept his shirt and pants on -as you can see him developing his Arnold persona with more of the charm and humor that characterized his outings in films like "Commando", "Predator" and "The Running Man"; he even shows more knack for drama as he delivers lines such as "What I want, you cannot give me." and "Life for Valeria." Wilt Chamberlain plays his part well enough, Jones is fierce looking, Mako is dignified, Oliva D'Abo is cute and Walter has his moments though he really doesn't belong in this movie (Robert E.
There's nothing like watching Arnold Schwarzenegger beat the living beans out of every single living thing he gets his hands on.And "Conan the Destroyer" carries on this lofty tradition.A sequel of sorts to "Conan the Barbarian", this one finds our boy (Schwarzenegger) securing a princess who is supposed to gain a sacred jewel that will bring a stone god to life.
And being surrounded by a fine ensemble like this doesn't hurt, either.Mako returns as a wizard who can either light a torch or throw a mean spell when he has to, Chamberlain and Jones both flex muscle fiercely and get down and dirty with the fight scenes, Walter adds to his oddball roles as the jewel-swallowing pickpocket Malak, D'abo is slight but well-used as the princess in question and Douglas plays her role as queen much like she did Ursa in "Superman II".And for as many fight scenes as there are (and there's a lot), there are also a plethora of humorous scenes - enough to make this one a solid rent alongside the original "Conan" (or even "The Sword and the Sorcerer", another pretender to the throne of Conan, with a few laughs all its own).Eight stars and two swords up for this "Destroyer" of the competition.
Although nobody stood out, performance-wise, I will give honourable mentions to; Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan, Grace Jones as Zula, Wilt Chamberlain as Bombaata, Mako as Akiro, Tracey Walter as Malak, Sarah Douglas as Queen Taramis and Olivia d'Abo as Princess Jehnna.I guess all fantasy adventure films will be weighed against the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy and older films, like this, are never going to come out well.
Some sequels are serious mistakes since they detract from the original, but Conan is one character that can handle a series of movies--but who'd want to see another if it is as silly and stupid as "Destroyer?".
As a result, limited and/or inexperienced actors like Arnold Schwartzenegger, Grace Jones, Olivia d'Abo and Wilt Chamberlain deliver surprisingly appealing and effective performances, while old pros Mako and Tracey Walter are playful and consistently entertaining throughout.
For the sequel, Conan the Destroyer, Richard Fleischer, the director, threw away all the points that made the first good; the minimalist dialogue and any vestige of an intelligent plot.But Arnold movies don't need plot.
Arnold Schwarzenegger reprises his role of legendary sword-swinger Conan, who, in this adventure, is promised the return of his love Valeria by Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) if he agrees to escort virginal princess Jehnna (Olivia D'Abo) on a quest to find a sacred jewelled horn.
With help from his loyal friends, wise wizard Akiro (Mako), cowardly thief Malak (Tracey Walter) and warrior woman Zula (disco diva Grace Jones!!!!), Conan succeeds in his task, but is double-crossed by the queen's guard, Bombaata (Wilt Chamberlain), who has been given orders to kill the barbarian.Conan isn't the only one who feels betrayed as a fan of the original film, which took a delightfully coarse approach to its sword and sorcery, I have to admit to being disappointed by the family friendly nature of this sequel.