The Return of Torgo and Wooley's September Excite-o-rama!

Glad to be this forum's resident movie pirate.

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I'm not sure if you're talking Excalibur or Camelot, but they both appear to be rentable on iTunes. Excalibur is on sale on iTunes, if you want to buy it, for $5 (which is $1 more than the rental).

Sorry, I meant Lancelot du Lac, the movie I reviewed. That's good to know about Camelot, though, since I haven't seen it.

That's what I get for skimming threads too quickly, and not expanding the lead-in image (on mobile, images are collapsed by default).

Trancers

300 years (?) in the future, with old Los Angeles under water, The Council does its best to rule benevolently over the human race. But a violent cop, Jack Deth (!) continues to hunt down the remaining disciples of a psychotic cult-leader who murdered his wife. Forced into retirement, he is called back when it turns out the cult-leader is alive... in the year 1985. A new technology has allowed him to move back through his own bloodline to live in the body of an ancestor and hunt down the ancestors of The Council. And Jack Deth is sent back the same way to hunt him down.


This movie is fun in like the first 3 minutes. It knows what it is and has a clear vision in terms of its style and tone and jumps right in starts having a good time and it just does its thing and that's that. It’s narrative is coherent, it makes sense, it isn’t just a mad rush from action sequence to action sequence nor does it really drag at any point and honestly, I like the simple story a lot. The concept of the future, the idea of “time traveling” through your own bloodline, and the first instance I can think of of “bullet-time” in the clever “Long Second” watch, are all nice ideas that are realized on the screen.
And its low-budget-Blade-Runner look actually kinda works.


Not to mention a little fun 80s L.A. vibes.


Academy Award-winner Helen Hunt, of course, is charming and it made me think about how many good actors there are out there who only make it this far. This was her first big role in a feature film and it might have been her last if you look at her filmography but she hung in there and manages to take a turn later because she has what it takes. I think about somebody like Jenny Wright who also isn’t bad but doesn’t have what Helen Hunt has. She brings a lot to this movie.
Tim Thomerson is just a really under-appreciated guy. I’ve enjoyed him in everything I’ve ever seen him in from Jekyll and Hyde, Together Again to this film to Volunteers (“I’m gonna kill ya. I’m gonna skin ya. I’m gonna use your shin-bone for a pencil-box”) to his hilarious and charismatic turn in Cherry 2000.
Honestly, there’s nothing really bad about this movie. It may not be great but it’s pretty fun and really in its weird way is better than a lot of action movies these days. Frankly, this is how you make a low-budget movie. I honestly think this is a perfectly worthwhile, low-budget 80s film. It has my respect.

That neon aesthetic is my jam. I also see Charles Band directed this. Can he do no wrong? I say no. Oh, and an Art LaFleur appearance? In CT's immortal words, consider this watchlisted.

Seriously, it's not exactly a masterpiece, but a lower-budget movie that fully succeeds at what it is trying to do?
How can you not give that some love?

This thread is slowly solidifying itself as "movies I've never seen, but whose covers I vividly remember from trips to the video store in the late 80s/early 90s".

Call me crazy, but I'd rather watch Doctor Mordred than Doctor Strange (2016).

My next entry, which I'll have ready in the next couple days, is a relatively recent release that more or less goes along with your question. Keep reading!

I'm the kid who rented them.

Nice to see mentions of both Split Second and Dark Angel (which is how I knew it even though I first learned of it watching America's Top Ten at God past whatever in the morning when it was released over there) if I can add another for a great triple bill, The Hidden.



I think I still have all three of these on VHS.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Conan The Destroyer

Conan returns in this more Lovecraftian and yet also more Lucaspielbergian adventure where the Cimmerian is tasked with protecting a princess on her quest to acquire an ancient artifact that will awaken a sleeping god. Little does he, or the princess for that matter, know that she is to be sacrificed and he slain at the end of their quest. Could it be curtains for the precocious young maiden and the Barbarian warrior? Probably not but, hey, let's do it.

Revisiting this adventure for the first time in a good 30 years, after watching it at least a dozen times back in the day, I wondered why it was common knowledge that this was an inferior film compared to John Milius' cult favorite. And I was struck immediately, in the first moments of the film, by the undeniable and overwhelming influence that Lucas and Spielberg had on cinema by the mid 1980s. Milius' film is, not to put too fine a point on it, tough, muscular, and sinewy, with real grit and some genuine artistry.
This is so NOT John Milius’ film. Producer Dino DeLaurentis wanted the sequel to make a lot more money and so decided to soften the tone of the film, make it more popular with a younger audience, and of course that also meant securing a PG rating instead of the R of the original. And boy does he ever. The film definitely has more of that Indiana Jones feel, the way the action is filmed and edited with more camp, the addition of a lot more humor, and overwhelmingly in the rousing score. The early introduction of a new, comic-relief sidekick in the first scene really sets the tone and it is, frankly, silly, and a great deal of violence and sexual content was cut. I mean, there's still heads flying through the air, but don't show a boob, for god's sake!
Anything that seems adult or mature is cut from this film, there's the post-Raiders gloss all over this thing, and there's even stunt casting galore with both Wilt Chamberlain and Grace Jones thrown into the mix (neither can act a lick).
It’s funny to note, however, that, even though this is the Silly Conan Movie, it’s still so much more credible than either Krull or Legend, in respective ways. Despite all the distracting Spielbergery, there is some pretty credible fantasy, particularly when the Evil Wizard turns into a giant pterodactyl made of smoke and abducts d'Abo's Princess. And the sequence of the rest of the group entering the castle and Conan battling the wizard is the centerpiece of the film, really.


Though it just can't help but devolve into some lightheartedness to broaden the audience...


But it is still just deeper and better realized fantasy than most of the sword and sandal films of this time (though there were some lower-budget ones that did a pretty decent job with much less production). While I wouldn’t champion this movie I would say that 27% on RT is absurd and that this might actually be the quintessential representation of mid-80s fantasy film. It has the budget, it has most of the technicals (though I had some issues with the cinematography and the creature effects will require both understanding and a sense of humor), it has the post-Raiders big-movie feel (soundtrack and rating and comic relief), and, despite an adolescent sensibility, it actually ends up being pretty fun.
If you like the seriousness of Max von Sydow and James Earl Jones in your Conan, I suggest you stick with Milius' original. If you're up for some silly Spielberg-era fantasy fun, then this might just be the Conan for you.

Would you say Destroyer is to the Conan franchise what Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is to the Mad Max franchise? If that's a main reason why it's not highly regarded, I've been avoiding it for too long. I don't mind a little faux Lucaspielbergism.

Maybe a little, except that Beyond Thunderdome is actually a good movie, no matter what anyone says, and was guided by the same hand as its two predecessors. Milius was replaced for Conan The Destroyer (I mean, he turned it down once he heard about the plans to to soften it up and broaden its appeal, so they had to) and the film was guided much more by DeLaurentis than the first film had been. I think Miller, on the other hand, actually incorporates what he may have picked up from Lucas and Spielberg rather well, probably better than even they did at times.
This is not to say that Destroyer is a bad movie but it's a much bigger step down than Thunderdome is to Max (still my personal favorite of the series) and RW.

Road Warrior is best of the 4.

Barbarian is definitely better than Destroyer. But destroyer isn’t a bad movie

I know a lot of people feel that way, but I never will. I've been watching the series for almost 40 years and my mind has yet to be changed.
I rank them:
Mad Max
The Road Warrior
Beyond Thunderdome = Fury Road

My mom was a firm believer in the MPAA ratings, so I did not see Barbarian until I was old enough to rent it myself. She did take us to see Destroyer at the theater, however, and even at that young age (13) I could tell that we were slumming here. I was a serious-minded little tween and did not think highly of comic-relief in my fantasy movies, and was also skeptical of pop singers and NBA players, so I wasn't having it.
I revisited it a few years ago and I can see the charm now, but I think yall are still being kinder to it than I was. Wooley's review is pretty much spot-on though, I just think it's a matter of how forgiving the individual viewer is.

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Yeah, I kinda re-set my mind-set about halfway through the movie when I really decided to start focusing on what the movie was doing well rather than what it wasn't. And honestly, the second half of the film is significantly better than the first, when the film is assembling its scrappy band of rapscallions. None of it holds a candle really to the first film with its philosophical schools (that is strength boy, that is power!), Thulsa Doom turning into a snake, The Tree Of Woe, and Valeria.
Honestly, you wanna be comparing Destroyer to things like Krull, The Sword And The Sorcerer, Red Sonja, Deathstalker, The Beastmaster, that sort of thing. Though I'll take Beastmaster over Destroyer any day. Except for Olivia d'Abo. She was great. 13-going-on-14 years old and she nearly owns the movie.

Isn't Kate Winslet in it as well?