Arnold Schwarzenegger (“Commando”, “Last Action Hero”) stars in this sword and sorcery movie that I’m not too keen on to say the least. It’s a barrage of gory violence, sex and goofiness, which makes it very unclear what audience this was both intended for and suitable for.

Conan (Schwarzenegger) was a slave at childhood after Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back”, “The Lion King”) murdered his parents and his people. After he is made free Conan embarks on a quest to kill Thulsa Doom and along the way he meets friends and has to overcome obstacles including a giant snake.

Conan isn’t a particularly complex character and doesn’t need a good performance to go with him so I guess Schwarzenegger is suitable for the part as he has the muscles for it and some barbarian qualities. Thulsa Doom feels very much like Darth Vader so you feel they just wrote the part or altered him after James Earl Jones was attached to the project. He’s sort of enjoyable but when he talks about ‘power’ and is wearing a cape and helmet you feel a massive sense of déjà vu. The other characters aren’t very good either. Mako (“Sidekicks”, “TMNT”) is alright as the Wizard, who does a little narration also.

The film starts off pretty well but by the time it gets good again you’ve lost a lot of interest. I’m not sure what audience this is really for. Like I mentioned it is very gory and has sex in it but at the same time has a light-hearted sense of adventure that you find in a lot of children’s films. The special effects aren’t too thrilling even by 1980s standards. The action scenes and music are good aspects of the film though. If you don’t mind some typical sword slashing with Arnold then maybe you’ll want to pick this one up as you can do a lot worse but for everyone else just stick to something else.