Kull the Conqueror

1997 "Courage conquers all."
4.8| 1h35m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 29 August 1997 Released
Producted By: Universal Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A barbarian named Kull becomes ruler after defeating the old king in battle. In an effort to regain the throne, the former king's heirs resurrect Akivasha, a witch queen. However, Akivasha has plans of her own for the throne, and only Kull stands in the way.

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Reviews

ShangLuda Admirable film.
Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Neil Welch Well, I thought you'd have to motor in order to come up with anything cheesier than Arnie's 3 sword and sorcery outings (2 Conans and a Red Sonja), but Kevin Sorbo's Kull the Conqueror manages to do so with a minimum of trouble.To be fair, the sets and costumes are OK, and the cast give it their all. But the special effects are a bit naff, and the special effects make-up is super-naff.And the script, plot, and characterisations are not only naff, but also cheesy (and when I say cheesy, I'm talking Gorgonzola).It passes the time if you're not feeling fussy.
funkyfry Some films are mediocre, some films are bad, but still other films are so misconceived and poorly executed that the film-makers should be embarrassed of themselves. "Kull" is exactly that film, and it's more fun to laugh at its unintentional idiocy than to make any attempt to take it seriously as fantasy. At any rate the film-makers also took care of that possibility by filling the sorry affair with so much contemporary humor in a pathetic attempt to imitate the formula of the "Hercules" TV show that starred the same "actor" who appears in this film, Kevin Sorbo.It didn't have to be this way. King Kull is one of the more interesting characters created by the legendary 1930s pulp writer Robert E. Howard, famous for Conan. Howard's writing has been mostly insulted and degraded by these film versions -- but this one is so awful it makes "Conan the Destroyer" look like "Lord of the Rings." It makes "Red Sonja" look like "Jason and the Argonauts." And it makes "Conan the Barbarian" look like "Citizen Kane." I actually paid to see this in the theater because I'm such a big Robert Howard fan. It was so disappointing that I had to give it a spin on DVD just to see if it could really be as bad as I remembered it. It's far worse than any memory can convey. Right away, you have probably the worst music I've ever heard in a film, a combination of mock-Wagner and mock-Megadeth. Electric guitars on the soundtrack are an especially poor harbinger for a film supposedly set in ancient history. Then you start to notice that all the characters look like roadies for Spinal Tap, and the main villain dude has a mullet that would make Billy Ray Cyrus jealous. So maybe it all makes sense in a twisted way... apparently this was a demographic they were shooting for; perhaps they even advertised this film on WWF smack-down.There's no getting around what limits the movie the most -- basically the entire cast is wrong and incompetent. Kevin Sorbo always seems like a nice guy, and little else. He's all wrong to play a sadistic barbarian, but the film-makers have solved that problem by removing all traces of Kull's personality and all signs that he was created by Robert Howard, or you could say all signs that he was created by anyone other than a market research survey group. He's polite, soft-spoken, respectful of women, and he wants to free all the slaves. He's a hero -- a character who has no business in a Robert Howard story. Just once I'd like to see this great writer's stories rendered in a way that isn't just to turn all the characters into generic knights in shining armor. Doing that to his world and his characters is like making a Disney movie about the Donner Party. I can understand why a lot of people look down on writing like his, because they assume it's actually junk like this movie.It doesn't stop there, but I get too tired of thinking about it to go on. Sorbo is the least of our worries in the cast actually, considering that Harvey Fierstein is painfully hammy (and his character seems modeled on a dull character from the TV show), and the director seems to have thought it was a good idea to give all the heavy acting scenes to Tia Carrere. Her misbegotten performance lends the movie most of its laugh factor. This movie is cheap and ugly looking -- I would guess that they spent more money on the lame "Merlin" miniseries in the 90s than they did on this movie which was foisted on theater audiences. Not only that, but the director has no taste and no talent for cinema at all. Everything is shot in a bland and generic way so that none of it seems infused with any kind of power or majesty. Whatever the faults of Milius' original Conan film, and there are many, at the very least he attempted to get the dark atmosphere of Howard's world right and to convey some fraction of the characters' fatalism. Unless the new "Solomon Kane" film is a huge surprise, it will be the only example of somebody even attempting something different of this type in a fantasy movie for a long time.
Dave from Ottawa First the good news. This picture has production design worthy of Conan creator Robert E. Howard's legacy. Everything else is bad news. The script is allegedly a many version hand-me-down re-working of the never made third Conan movie, the film in which Conan would finally win the throne of Aquilonia. Instead we get Howard's backup hero (Kull) who takes the throne at the beginning of the film in an un-stirring, non-epic little battle and then loses it quickly to Witch Demon Akivasha (played to the hilt by Tia Carrere who obviously had rare fun as a bad girl). Kull then kills an hour on a very routine quest-to-find-his-right-to-rule and finally returns for the classic Howard showdown between good brawn and evil sorcery. The main problem is Kevin Sorbo, who got so good at playing Hercules in self-spoofing post-modern fashion that he simply doesn't resonate with the necessary authentic bronze age thuggishness of a Howard hero. Here was a chance to play a variation on his usual screen self and he punted it. Too bad. The set decorators captured the proper essence of Robert Howard...
Kate Weston Rock music. Fantasy realm. Cool battle scenes. Okay, not the most perfect movie in the world, but still a good movie. Kevin Sorbo plays Kull a barbarian from Atlantis. Wishing to join General Taligaro's Dragon Legion, he is rejected at first for not being "noble blood". When the King decides to slaughter his entire family, so his life is not endangered later on when they challenge the throne. Kull (Sorbo) is kills the King and takes his place, as is the law. When the threat of an evil demon queen comes knocking, Kull takes one last adventure to destroy the queen who is trying to take his kingdom, while also falling in love along the way.Kull the Conqueror was actually meant to be Conan 3 (Conan the Conqueror, and was based on the first Conan story "The Phoenix on the sword"), but due to Arnie not wanting to reprise his role and Kevin not wanting to redo a character already played. (Note however that a Kull story entitled "By This Axe I Rule" is very similar to the story line of this movie, and is a more likely basis for the movie.)After all is said and done though, this fantasy movie mixed with a great soundtrack of heavy rock music, we have a superb movie made to entertain us on a rainy day. 2/2 for the actors' roles. 2/2 for the excellent scenery. 4/4 for the storyline. 2/2 for the production, directing, script and overall areas of the movie.