A review of Conan the Barbarian

Set during the Hyborean Age we first see Conan's father, played by Hellboy actor Ron Pearlman actually giving an impromptu Caesarian section to his wife on a battlefield as she gives birth to Conan before dying. We next see a young Conan participate in a game which purpose it to run with an egg in your mouth to a point, without breaking the egg to sort of prove your manhood. Conan ends up decapitating the heads off a few David Bowie lookalikes who attack those participating in the game and he returns home with the heads and the egg intact. This scene might very well be the only scene to homage the Arnie interpretation of Conan, since it's really quite ridiculous. Although it's definitely not as funny as Arnie unching a camel or him throwing a witch into fire then shouting CHROM.

We are shown that another warrior, who was the reason that Conan had actually been born on a battlefield, has been waging wars up and down the continent trying to unite the bone fragments of dead Kings, which when joined together creates a mask which allows powerful dark magic to be performed when the blood of sacrificial pure-blood virgins is placed upon it.

So as it turns out, Conan's father is in possession of the last bone fragment and the evil warlord Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) shows up and tortures Conan's father. Conan watches as his father kills himself to save Conan from Killing himself, and molten metal pours over his head. It is also revealed Zym's daughter is a witch(with a silly gimmick metal freddie kruger like glove) and that they are trying to unite the fragments of bone to resurrect their dead mother/wife and then rule using the dark magic. They get the bone fragment and leave.

Cut to twenty years later and it's apparent Conan (Jason Momoa) has been on many adventures with his sidekick but all the while he has been searching for revenge. Conan eventually encounters someone who worked for Zym and who was present when Conan's father was killed. Conan allows himself to be arrested/imprisoned and then breaks out with info regarding the whereabouts of Zym, after having battled a sea monster being used as some sort of cruel pet.

Eventually it is shown Zym and his daughter have found a pure-blood virgin and this is where Conan meets Zym after a horse chase results in him capturing the virgin and using her as bait. Zym and Conan face off and in the most genuinely cool part of the movie, Zym's daughter summons sand-zombies to fight Conan after Conan started getting the upperhand in the fight against Zym. Conan gets poisoned by the witch and they return to Conan's sidekicks boat. He is saved but Zym's men attack the boat then are defeated. However after Conan frees the woman, she gets captured. Her blood is used and the mask is re-forged and Zym has what he has wanted for so long. However, nothing comes of it, there is no pay off. It doesn't give him any magic powers that can be seen, he doesn't get to resurrect his dead wife, his daughter fights the virgin and dies, then Zym dies in a fight with Conan.


CONCLUSIONS

Jason Momoa contrary to other critics, is actually pretty charismatic. The film is sorely lacking though, even in this review I have tried to show the banality of the film. A warlord wages war for nigh on 30 years. In doing so he attacks Conan's village twice and kills his father. Thus Conan the barbarian is born.

Conan has now been shaped in such a way that revenge is the over-riding factor in his life. 20 years after the attack he eventually finds evidence of this warlord which is rediculous because the warlord controls everything on the continent. He's waged batte for thirty years but NO-ONE has heard of them??? Very strange.

Conan fights a sea monster in a prison - This sounds like it should be a great spectacle, but, it just kind of wasn't. It had no energy to it, it was like watching a bad TV movie.

The direction and the writing - was poor and that is being kind. At no point was there suspense, or a feeling of a serious threat to Conan, the cool zombie-sand people were pretty a nice touch but the fight was not choreographed well at all, again no suspense, no sense of the gravity of the situation no reason to feel something as a viewer.

The Big Bad, Zym, never got a pay-off, he gets his mask, but nothing happens when he gets it. His voice seemed to get more loud and echo-y but that was it and his daughters witch powers apparently dried up when she was fighting Conan's former virgin love interest. The two baddies die and well...it just seemed rushed. All in all it was just far too convoluted. Far too much was crammed in. The film was not balanced, which is a shame because I personally believe Jason Momoa deserves better.

Also, I had a real intense dislike of the cast. I am pretty sure the cast members (Momoa excluded) can act, but in this film it would indicate they cannot. Again it's probably due to the extremely bad direction of this film. It was lie watching a meeting of over-actors anonymous or even some sort of AmDram production.

The film also suffers of course because even though parts of it are ridiculous, they've made it too serious. The comedy is too minimal and I can't even work out if it was intended sometimes.

The Original Arnie film had excellent lines, a quality cast, truly ridiculous plot but nontheless there was suspense, comedy, James Earl Jones kills Conan's mother, I mean GD!!! The plot while ridiculous was at least believeable. Conan pushing the big grinder thing and fighting for sport as a slave and being educated by his master - was also a much better origin. The original was just a superior film because the villians were a much more intense threat and the films pacing was perfect. The mystical elements were also done so much more effectively and even the poor special effects worked to it's credit.

All in all this review set out to show that the new film has a great lead in Jason Momoa but is severely lacking in craftmanship and feeling, it is just a boring un-interesting film. 2: To let you know that it would be best sticking to the original. 3. Arnie of course is STILL Conan - again no disrespect to Momoa. 4.If i were to give this a number out of ten, ten being the best a film can recieve as a rating, this would have a 3 and that's solely down to Momoa trying his heat out to get something out of a bad script and trying his best to get something out of a film which is badly directed.

Seriously, avoid paying to see this film. Writing a review of this film bored me because it's nearly all negative.