Overall, the acting in Conan the Barbarian (1983) is bottom of the barrel, but somehow the director managed to snag Jones, a trained and capable actor, to play the villain Thulsa Doom. Being relegated to a small role and surrounded by such incapable actors, Jones could easily have phoned this in. But no. In the very first scene he appears, Jones has NO LINES, he can only act with his body and face, and that performance alone has more depth and meaning than all the rest of the acting in the film combined. Later, when he does speak, Jones steals the show by creating a villain so compelling and subtle that Schwarzenegger’s Conan has to resort to tropes of cheap muscles and sword slinging to compete with Thulsa Doom’s philosophically superior take on “flesh is greater than steel”.
Many of you are probably surprised that James Earl Jones starred in Conan the Barbarian. I was shocked on the re-watch because I had completely forgotten about it. Conan itself is kinda dumb, but fun to watch. Now you have two excuses for a rewatch: For the fun of it, and to see a master actor doing his job!
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/15c6c5j/james_earl_jones_performance_in_conan_the/
Comments
Post a Comment