Reportedly a script for a third Conan film was prepared, but was reworked for the 1997 KULL THE CONQUEROR, produced by Raffaela de Laurentis, daughter of Dino, who produced the first two Conans. This switch-over seems more than appropriate, since the first Conan film used as its villain a character given the name “Thulsa Doom.” In Howard’s prose stories, Doom was the foremost foe of King Kull, who lived ages before Conan and who may have been Conan’s distant ancestor, depending on who you ask. Further, the repurposed script is somewhat improved by shifting its attention from a roving barbarian who may someday become a king, to a somewhat settled-down barbarian who has already become a king and has to deal with all the resultant hassles.
KULL’s script also uses some elements from Howard’s only Conan novel, THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON. In this narrative, Conan has already become a king, and is forced to oppose a conspiracy that will unleash a long-dead sorcerer, and his long-vanished city Acheron, upon the barbarian’s contemporary world. KULL revises this scenario with some metaphysical tweaks: now Acheron, a city of sin, has been banished into limbo by the good god Valka, who allows an eternal flame to burn and to remind mortals of “godless times.” Movie-Kull (Kevin Sorbo), like prose-Kull, battles Borna, the current king of Valursia—the modern realm built upon the ashes of Acheron—and, after killing Borna, assumes Borna’s kingship. As in the novel, conspirators attempt to revive Acheron to its old evil glory, but instead of bringing an evil sorcerer to life first, the villains revive a sorceress, Akivasha (Tia Carrere), whose name is taken from a minor vampire-character in HOUR OF THE DRAGON.
In the Howard stories, Kull is a grim, brooding barbarian, and various conspirators in Valusia maneuver him into fighting King Borna, hoping that they will reap the reward after Kull does their dirty work. Instead, Kull seizes the throne, though his barbarian nature never sits well with the heavy responsibilities of kingship. However, the movie changes this scenario, not so much to be in line with HOUR OF THE DRAGON, but to make the hero more likable, in line with Sorbo’s heroic persona on the then-current HERCULES THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS teleseries.
These compromises in the film’s first third show the most interesting psychological motifs. Kull is first seen being inducted into the Valusian army by General Taligaro, who duels Kull while lecturing him on the superiority of nobility to the barbarian ethos. Then all of the soldiers are drawn to the Valusian palace by the news that King Borna has gone mad, killing all or most of his heirs. Kull fights Borna not for personal gain, but to preserve life. The dying Borna, who apparently has a quasi-paternal feeling toward Kull, bequeathes the crown to the barbarian. A lot of Valusians aren’t happy about having an outsider for a king, though this Kull, being a Hercules-type “good guy,” gains some traction by advocating religious freedom and the end of slavery.
Though Borna apparently had heirs before he killed them, nothing is said about Kull inheriting a queen or a consort of any kind. However, Kull’s court adviser introduces the hero to a harem full of slave-girls, informing Kull that they’re all his now. Being too nice a guy to take advantage of women, Kull only has eyes for one slave-girl, the prophetess Zareta. A vague backstory is cited, in which Kull apparently made advances on Zareta. It’s never clear if the late King Borna took advantage of Zareta’s charms—though she does mention, much later and in another context, that she’s not a virgin. However, it’s briefly mentioned that Borna “had a fit” when Kull tampered with Zareta, which almost sounds much like an irate father getting mad at his daughter’s ill-mannered suitor. By ceding the kingship to Kull, though, Borna also ceded the sexual right to Zareta or any other slave-girl. Again, Sorbo-Kull is too good-hearted a guy to take advantage of a woman, though he does try to follow up on his earlier advances. Zareta, though she reciprocates Kull’s feelings, shuts him out by affecting to be no more than an unenthusiastic slave.
Kull won't have sex with an unwilling woman, but he’s apparently still rather horny, for the next day he’s looking for his next queen among the available noblewomen. However, certain conspirators have revived the 3,000-year old corpse of the evil sorceress Akivasha, who then passes herself as one of the noblewoman. She ensorceres Kull into choosing and marrying her, and, on their wedding night, gives Kull a kiss that makes him seem to be dead. Later, after Akivasha has been acknowledged as Valusia’s new queen, she wakes Kull up and tells him she’s decided to honor him with her attentions after all. But Kull manages to get free and, allying himself with Zareta and her priest-brother, seeks to procure “the breath of Valka,” a magical power able to banish the ageless sorceress.
After this promising setup, the rest of KULL is just the usual sword-and-sorcery, adequately handled but never surprising, except for two elements. One is the highly unusual casting of comedian Harvey Feinstein as one of Kull’s old rogue-friends. The other is the climax, where, in order to utilize the “breath of Valka,” Sorbo-Kull has to kiss Akivasha in her form of a big ugly demon. Neither of these elements is anything brilliant, but they were at least eyebrow-raising. There’s also a subplot in that General Taligaro, Kull's former commander, is one of the conspirators, with whom Kull has a couple of lively fights, but as a character Taligaro is pretty routine.
In short, KULL THE CONQUEROR doesn’t set the barbarian bar any higher. But its medium-level thrills are a good deal better than most films in this genre.
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