Kull the Conqueror (1997) - Cousin Conan

It's hard to talk about 1997's 'Kull the Conqueror' without mentioning either Schwarzenegger, Conan the Barbarian, or both.  So I thought I'd get it out of the way early.  It's very similar.  Kevin Sorbo doesn't move that far away from the TV role that made him famous, i.e. Hercules, when he plays this film's titular barbarian who - sort of inadvertently - becomes king of a very Conan-esque 'sword and sorcery' type land, before realising that he'll have to slaughter all manner of villains in order to retain the throne and save his true love.  

In fact, 'Kull' was rumoured to be once a Conan script that Arnie turned down, so they gave it to Sorbo instead, who is very likable as the leading man and seems to know the right amount of cheese to go with the performance, so the story is never 100% serious, but also not an outright comedy by a mile.

Now, with a barbarian assuming the throne, this puts more than a few people's noses out of joint and they hatch a plan in order to resurrect the 'Red Witch' and use her powers to dethrone our boy, Kull.  Now, I've never seen the 'Hercules' TV series, so I don't know what Sorbo was like in it, but, as I mentioned, I enjoyed his performance here well enough.  However, I couldn't help but warm to the two main villains - Tia Carrere and Thomas Ian Griffith, who both seemed to be relishing their dramatically-evil roles and chewing the scenery for all it was worth.

I was thoroughly enjoying the film most of the way through, but it did sort of lag towards the third act a bit.  I don't know what I was expecting from the climax (and the second rate TV-style CGI monster effects are easily forgivable due to the production's obviously-low budget), but I thought they would have done something a little better.

This ending sort of turned the film - for me, anyway - into one that I would definitely have put on again in a few years if I was in the mood for some cheesy sword and sorcery, to one that I'm in two minds about.  There's definitely better out there, but that's not to say this one doesn't have plenty of well-meaning charm about it.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights