Kull the Conqueror (1997)

Waste of time

Simply Perfect

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

An barbarian warrior becomes a king when he defeats a king in armed combat and the king's heir conspire to overthrow him and reclaim the throne by resurrecting an evil sorceress. Kull The Conqueror was meant to be Conan The Conqueror and it was going to star Arnold Schwarzenegger but the film never happened and instead we got this film which i can describe as awful and camp the acting is bad, the effects were awful and even the action doesn't pay off in the end and like i said before Kevin Sorbo is a pretty terrible actor and this movie shows it if you like bad 90's fantasy films watch it but if you want to see a much better film that this film copies go watch Conan The Barbarian and Conan The Destroyer both way better than this (3/10).

Around this time Kevin Sorbo was starring in the fashionably popular TV series "Hercules", so I guess it was only natural that he would go on to find himself starring in this sword-and-sorcery romp that's a cheesy, water-down version of "Conan the Barbarian" that felt like it was made for straight-to-TV. It uses the same world brought to us through the novels of author Robert E. Howard, as this was meant to be a Conan sequel; "Conan the Conqueror" but was changed to Kull for Sorbo when Schwarzenegger turned down the role. Kull a lowly born barbarian inherits the throne of Valusia and becomes a real favourite of the people. However the king's sons believe the throne to be theirs and conjure up an ancient spirit of darkness to rid Kull of their kingdom. However she has plans of her own. There's some mindless fun abound and Sorbo makes for a comfortable heroine, but it somewhat plods along and is fairly unimaginative with it being limited in most aspects. Namely its use of bland visual effects. Although we do get to see Sorbo smack lips with a hideous rubber looking demon. Then throw in the beautiful ladies Karina Lombard and Tia Carrere in her seductively villainous role. Thomas Ian Griffith plays it mean and Sven-Ole Thorsen chews up the scenery in the small part he has as the king Kull inherits the kingdom from. Sorbo actually brings a considerately articulate nature to his part. Stagy sets, cheap costumes and mechanical direction. It knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything more, but it just lacks energy despite barbarian smashing, corny dialogues and howling guitar score. "My whole life has been a quest."

I didn't see Kull when it first came out, not a fan of the Hercules TV show, or all the over-ironic self-parodies of the time, save Scream. But after becoming a fan of Robert E. Howard, and reading the original Kull stories, I decided to check it out.Dare I say it, I liked it better than the John Milius Conan the Barbarian. Kull the Conquerer, parodic though it was, still used more elements from the actual Kull stories, right down to character names. Taligaro, Zareta, although no Brule, maybe they were saving him for a planned sequel. Plot elements were there as well, including the famed line 'By this Axe I rule!' The characters speak in hip modern dialogue, part of the joke. Usually, this kind of thing gets on my nerves. But thinking about it, in Howard's stories characters were always articulate. In the John Milius/Oliver Stone scripted Conan movie it was apparently decided that because the characters were barbarians they...must...speak...very...slowly. At least in Kull we have complete sentences.Kull is still a very loose adaptation, but I found myself having fun during many of the fight scenes. From what I've heard, the new Conan movie in development is to be more loyal to Robert E Howard's work. I hope so. Until then, Kull, surprising as it is, will have to do.

In the very beginning of the movie, Kull (Hercules) is attempting to join an army, but fails. This is odd, because he seems to be a foreigner since he seems to know nothing of the local culture. Therefore, why would he try to join an army of a country he's never heard of? The King has gone mad and is killing all his sons, and Kull stops him by killing him. The army I already mentioned were all made up of men of royal blood (I.e. the King's relatives) so, since all the Kings direct heirs are dead, there is some confusion as to which one of the soldiers is the rightful heir. It's most likely one of two of the soldiers, and of course they themselves are somewhat bias as to which one it is. However, the King, with his dying breath, decrees that Kull is the next King.And that's the first three minutes of the movie. (Or might have even been the first MINUTE).This is basically a low-budget sword-and-sorcery movie. The culture isn't established enough, Nothing's really explained about Kull's motives other than liking axes and not liking slavery, and basically the whole movie is alright but not great. See this movie if you just wanna see some low-budget sword-and-sorcery, or if you like to watch movies for the purpose of laughing at them. If you like GOOD movies, I suggest Lord of the Rings.