Conan The Barbarian – Monday 19th January 2026

I’d seen Conan back in the day on TV; it was so long ago that I could only vaguely remember it, so this recent viewing felt pretty fresh.

What an epic movie! It’s so damn good!

It’s exactly what you want from a ‘swords and sorcerers’ movie (a genre that doesn’t exist anymore, of which there were plenty in the 1980s). And the music! Epic is definitely the word! (Although it kept reminding me of the iconic promos for The Legend of Zelda!)

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born to play Conan; the character fits him like a glove, and he actually lends a tenderness to him, which proves that Arnold can act! James Earl Jones similarly provides a gravitas to the villain, and the narration from Mako is the icing on the cake.

The visuals, the contrast of the man against the vastness of the landscape, the practical sets and the millions of extras; it all combines to elevate the film and gives it a sense of authenticity and grandeur we’re unlikely to ever see again. As an audience, we can completely believe that once upon a time, this place may have actually existed!

The protagonist is archetypal and his motivation of revenge is primal; which speaks to the core of every man. We’re primitive creatures beneath it all, and this film taps into that. The muscular men, the beautiful women, the music, the wilderness, the theme of injustice and ‘goodies vs. baddies’; it’s all the ingredients that make up a man’s psyche, and there’s a definite enjoyment in seeing it unfold before your very eyes.

I loved watching this film. My only gripe is that the structure could have been tweaked so that Conan doesn’t confront the main villain like three times in a row; one big climax would have been more effective. That said, the film is grand, with epic themes and epic characters.

The men are super masculine and the women are unashamedly beautiful, that’s something we definitely don’t see these days, which is a shame, because there’s a primal quality to that type of storytelling which bypasses our perceived intellectualism, and speaks to our inner caveman.

Sadly, the subsequent clones and sequels were so sh!t, they killed off the genre!

Anyway, great film!