This should be a great line to keep an eye on. I did enjoy Arnold's first outing as Conan, but the second one... not so much.
Same here. Conan may have had few lines in the first one, and the acting was largely unpolished, but there was something about that that made it work for me. Probably because they (Arnie and Sandahl) had been chosen for their athletic ability as opposed to acting ability.
I like Conan the Barbarian more for while being a relatively simple story, is told well for me, you see Conan grow and develop, the music (especially the music), the sets, the costumes, even Doom himself, they all feel as if they come from a time that pre-dates written History.
The second was more kid friendly, hence bigger box office. And i think they took something off the character for the second one. In the first conan was hungry and pissed off.
I think that's a reason why the second one doesn't hold as well. Not to mention despite a slightly higher budget, the Destroyer feels as if it had been made with half the funding of the Barbarian.
Plus, in Barbarian. Conan while not the most intellectual, was smart, able to learn both on the spot and over time, and knew how to think his way through problems (Battle of the Mound). Destroyer Conan felt like dumb muscle to me.