Conan the Barbarian (1982)

This is one of those movies I watched for education more than entertainment. It still gets cited now and then, particularly for a handful of quotable lines, but I was warned that it could really use a best-of cut. If it weren't streaming, I probably wouldn't have bothered checking it out.

In an unspecified land and century evocative of early medieval Europe, young Conan (then Jorge Sanz) sees the army of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) slaughter all the adults in his village and sell the children into slavery. Between manual labor, pit matches, and oriental training, Conan becomes quite the brawny fighter (now Arnold Schwarzenegger in his star-making role) before his voluntary release. He allies himself with two thieves, archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and fellow swordmaster Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), in his quest for vengeance. But Doom is worse than a mere warlord; he leads a snake-themed cult whose adherents readily kill themselves at his bidding, even tho he himself is reportedly more than a millennium old.

When "Barbarian" is in the title, you can't expect much in the way of modern civilized ethics. Conan is not squeamish about decapitating foes, for one thing. The R rating is also for gratuitous sex, not all of it evidently consensual. I suspect that's one aspect omitted from the less popular 2011 remake.

Not that I find the picture particularly sexist. Valeria kicks as much butt as Conan. Even when they seek to rescue a princess (Valérie Quennessen), she's not a damsel in distress in the usual sense: She joined the cult willfully and doesn't want to leave, but her father (Max von Sydow) misses her enough to offer a fortune. I might be more concerned about the politically incorrect depiction of Asians, tho it's more The Karate Kid than Sixteen Candles. 'Eighties, man.

Speaking of which, I have to say that this was made for a more patient era. While gory at times, it doesn't devote all that many minutes to violence, and some scenes move very slowly. And while I understand that some real skill went into the action, it tends to look gawky.

My low expectations were not low enough. I think the main problem is that the makers went for a more dire tone than the pulpy magazine source material suggested. Schlock and seriousness go together like mayonnaise and marshmallows.

I learned what I wanted to learn. I'm just not sure it was worth the 129 minutes.