I watched Conan the Destroyer on TV last night and can't help but wonder if The Terminator hadn't come out later in the year (they must surely have been in production along side each other) would that have been the end of Arnie's career.

wasn't that movie a pure lemon? I must admit the the Barbarian could have been a cult worthy minor masterpiece if they had not chosen to make it an insult thrown in the face of every Howard fan.

Was Destroyer a lemon? Haven't seen it in a long time.

I'm pretty sure Barbarian is a cult masterpiece. The soundtrack is perfect, as is the pacing, having at least a few of the greatest and most quotable film lines of all time, while simultaneously making the brilliant choice as The Terminator of having Arnie say as little as possible. It's big, it's dark, it's heavy, and campy as fuck. I honestly don't know it could have been done any better. And though I've read a good chunk of Howard's stories, I don't really understand what they'd complain about in this film, but I'm willing to be that whatever it is, the film does better

Destroyer is unwatchable crap. Did not finish.

Noted. Will dodge.

Rewatched Conan the Destroyer on pay-TV about two years ago, for the first time since seeing it in the '80s.
Yes, it's dodge-worthy.
The first one, Conan the Barbarian (1982), was tailored for adults. With its nudity and violence, it got an R-rating... and was all the better for it.
The sequel suffered from the decision to make it a kid-friendly movie with a PG rating. It might've worked as a straightforward action movie with the gore toned down, but they made the mistake of trying to "camp it up" with weak humor and silly dialogue, all of which fell flat.
Some of the FX work very well, e.g. the forced-perspective miniatures used to create castles, giant statues, etc.
But the creature FX are laughable... puppets with low-grade animatronics, actors in rubber masks, etc. Even as every line that was supposed to be funny elicits a groan, every monster that was supposed to be scary elicits a laugh. Ray Harryhausen had done better creature FX with stop-motion animation two or three decades earlier.

After Conan the Destroyer, Schwarzenegger still went on to co-star with Brigitte Nielsen in the equally bad Red Sonja (1985) before, wisely, walking away from the sword-and-fantasy genre.

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More recently saw the remake of Flatliners, starring Ellen Page.
The 1990 original (with Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland) was a movie that failed to make the best of its premise (medical students experimenting with the near-death phenomenon), and the 2017 movie falls even flatter (pun intended). The newer movie rates a feeble 4% at RottenTomatoes, which is about right, IMO.

I agree.

I dunno. I have a soft spot for Conan the Destroyer. Mind you, I have a soft spot for alot of 80s dreck. Trancers... Runaway... Wedlock...

Mike_L wrote:
The sequel suffered from the decision to make it a kid-friendly movie with a PG rating. It might've worked as a straightforward action movie with the gore toned down, but they made the mistake of trying to "camp it up" with weak humor and silly dialogue, all of which fell flat.

Wasn’t Kindergarten Cop a modern reboot?

Scorpion King book of souls.. do not watch this movie. Just don't.

Ironclad wrote:Scorpion King book of souls.. do not watch this movie. Just don't.

now if only you'd told me this a couple of days ago, i'd still have that 90m of my life....

It is dreadful eh. Direct to TV standard

direct to a tv somewhere in the deep dark early 90s....

Actually, I remember, the last movie I saw whole from end to end, although not in a single sitting, was Braveheart, I needed, for some masochistic motive, to view that lemon again, just to remember how bad it was... starting with the bridgeless Battle of Stirling Bridge and the total ignorance of Wallace's use of schiltrons to resist enemy, in particular enemy cavalry, charges.

Ha.

Just finished a swing in a dry mining camp with no wifi and waiting for my third and last flight to get home. Luckily I have finally had a drink.

Saw:

Robin hood (the Rusty Crowe version).

Rambo does Vietnam

Rambo does Afghanistan

Reds

Bad boys 11

Hot fuzz

Several bits of several others i didn't even bother learning the names of.

I'm all shit movied out.

Pacific Rim was a high point.

Hot Fuzz a shit movie? Get out!!

Just caught Assault on Percent 13 (the original) on t.v.. God I love that movie. When you are quoting the lines, you know you love it.

Fallible wrote:Hot Fuzz a shit movie? Get out!!

Yarp!

Ironic that Bad Boys 2 was also on his list, I mean, who hasn't seen Bad Boys 2?!