Conan

Conan the Barbarian is born in war, a product of blood and steel. Thus the film should be a visceral, violent portrayal of a warrior set against the fantasy backdrop of Robert E. Howard's Hyboria. What emerges on screen is a set of one dimensional characters placed in a world that feels half heatedly brought to life.

The film has been accused of being like viewing a video game. I would disagree. The nature of video games, particularly those of the fantasy and RPG genres, is immersion. There is no immersion here. We flit from place to place in a lame attempt to show the vastness of the world through a mediocre CGI backdrop of a castle or slave camp or pirate city. None are ever fully realised before Conan jaunts off somewhere else. The violence itself is the most disappointing. Nispel manages to create fight scenes that lack the kinetic quality of a dance. The camera is misplaced, the editing focusing on the wrong points. You never feel the hits, the power of the blows or Conan's qualities as a warrior. It feels clumsy.

There are more grunts and warcries than lines of dialogue and those spoken feel like the actors are running them in rehearsal for the first time. There is no commitment to the lines so again the audience fails to immerse in their characters. McGowen in contrast overly plays the sorcerer.

Given this is a reboot, the film does not feel fresh, but instead feels dated. It's almost as though Nispel wanted it to feel like the 1982 version, but taking only the worst qualities and none of the charm. Conan reinforces the assertion of refraining from producing reboots where there is nothing original the writers or director bring to the table. Conan is a stale rehash that will offer no reward to its audience.

I'm not going to get into the plot set-up and all that other stuff which has already been prefaced to this movie's release a thousand different ways. Just straight to the review ...

The entire introduction sequence at the beginning of this Conan was great, up until you see the Jason as the adult Conan. The child actor who played young Conan was broodier, and the sequence where he proves himself as a warrior was more dynamic and believable than most of the other action sequences in the movie. I really enjoyed that entire first portion of the movie, but it went down hill after that.

Jason Mamoa can be a really good Conan. He brought some new flare to the character, but I have to say that ultimately I'm split between him and Arnie, with a bit more leaning to Arnie's Conan. The director, and Jason himself, almost made this Conan rather "sun-shiney" and somewhat fluffy. They had all the sequences they needed to really get dark with him, but they kept it fairly light. With the exception of some mild nudity they really didn't take advantage of the "R" rating. With exception to that mild nudity much of this movie felt like a made-for-TV movie more so than something which should be in the theaters.

Plot ... bleh. It was a weak twist on the original movie's plot. Nothing special in any way, shape or form. In watching Conan go through the progression of the plot I felt like I was watching a video game play out where he was just maneuvering through the different level bosses of the game to his ultimate goal. To say the plot was formula is almost an insult to formula plots.

The CGI, especially in the scenics, was entirely too obvious and very light-hearted comic book-ish. I know there was a lot in this movie where they were drawing upon the great Frazetta artworks, but they missed the marks several times. At the end of the movie, as with many other contemporary special effects movies, I was missing the days of mechanical special effects and matte paintings as backdrops. CGI has destroyed a lot of movies over the years and this was another victim of the over-reliance that's been wrought by the movie industry.

The Studios NEED real people standing over their shoulders DURING production of what should be great movies, ESPECIALLY when there's already a fan base for the subject matter. They need people who aren't afraid to NOT be "Yes Men" and tell them straight up that something is stupid, or over-done, or under-done or just plain not right and let's start it over. The Studios don't have the genital fortitude to do this, so this is the kind of disappointment we have to live through 2 hours at a time throughout our lives. This movie could have been a beginning-of-summer blockbuster, but instead it's stuck in the "could-have-been" file.

Completely flopped at the cinemas and the release on Blu Ray over here was straight to the sale bin. So i could catch it for a few Euros in real 3D, big deal? Yes, because I was surprised by this flick. Don't get me wrong it isn't a masterpiece but it was quit enjoyable. sadly it was released before the main lead done by Jason Momoa was to become a big hit in Games Of Thrones as Khal Drogo.

There are so many well known names to see, Rose McGowan (Grindhouse (2007), Ron Perlman, Stephen Lang that it is strange that this flopped.

Nevertheless, we are stuck with it but the main problem is that many compare it to the original Conan (1982) with Arnold Schwarzenegger a thing I wont do.

I liked the settings and the CGI used, in fact it all reminded me a bit of Games Of Thrones. It also has a bit of nudity here and there and the use of red stuff flying around made it even more interesting.

Don't expect a flick like Immortals (2011) or 300 (2006) or effect flicks like that. If you like good old westerns with the hero riding towards sunset at the end than this is a thing for you.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Well, in general I'm not this master for writing reviews or anything else. But in general, I do agree with 95% of IMDb ratings, besides some special cases. And this is one of them.

Seriously, if we put away the old Conan the Barbarian Movie with Arnie. This movie offers You "A grade" quality of picture, "A- grade" quality of camera angles "B grade" quality of story composition "B grade" quality of actor performance and "A- grade" of sound/music quality. It's not that bad as a movie for DVD/BD @ your home, right? And frankly, many TV movies have much, much higher vote rating as Conan.

For me, I really enjoyed some fights in the movie, I liked how actors were masked up, also enjoyed Conan as a kid and as an adult. As I say, these guys didn't put out any blockbuster performance to Your screen but seriously, it wasn't that bad [5/10] all in all. It really deserves solid 6/10 from a random viewer and from a fan of medieval times and fantasy good 7/10.

Though, this is only my opinion and I fully respect the opinions of whole IMDb community...

Unlike many other thirty-somethings I wasn't that enamoured by the Conan franchise in the 80s. I mean I saw them all and only a few years later was converted to a full Arnie-Fan with Predator, Commando and The Terminator, but his leather loin-cloth and gleaming weapon never did that much for me.

So saying I looked at the reboot with some trepidation is a bit of an understatement. Well here is the almost apologetic square up: Now that I have seen Conan 2011 I wish I caught it in its (extremely limited) cinema run.

Forget Centurion and The Eagle (though The Eagle is perhaps a better film), THIS is what big screen dumb bare-chested action is all about. Put another way; anyone who enjoyed the Arnie originals – or anyone who spends too much time staring at heavy metal album covers – will find much to enjoy here.

Conan was born in the same place he lived – on a battlefield – in a hasty poor man's caesarean amid a huge ongoing bloodbath. As he aged and matured Conan was similarly premature in his battle readiness, beheading his first four savage assailants and proudly displaying them to his proud chieftain Father (Ron Perlman) before his barbarian-balls dropped.

Then on the same day Conan's life changed. Jay Leno announced he wanted his old gig back and… wait, wrong Conan.

On his fateful day Conan's Father died, and the final piece of an ancient mask with supernatural powers was gathered by a vicious murderer named Khalar Zym (Stephen Land), a man with a rapidly growing army of heavily armed followers and aspirations of global domination. With the mask in hand all Khalar Zym needed to fulfil his prophecy was the blood of a 'pure woman', and he, his army and his young witch daughter Marique (Rose McGowan) set off to search for it.

But Khalar Zym didn't tie up one very important loose end. He left young Coney alive to swear vengeance with his final words before his mighty voice broke… What follows is everything you expect from a film with Barbarian in the title. And more. Conan 2011 is violent, blood-soaked and action packed on a suitably large scale, with tough mono-syllabic talk, furrowed brows and heaving bosoms of all kinds.

Along the journey Conan must face a myriad of faceless minions, fanciful monsters and magical creations, all seemingly desperate to leap athletically upon his huge sword. Speaking of huge swords, Conan must also escort the damsel with the afore-mentioned pure blood, a young woman named Tamara (Rachel Nichols), with who Conan shares a 300 style sex scene that sets him apart as the most giving barbarian lover on record.

Jason Momoa does his best as he can as Conan in a role that practically demands that he be wooden and dumb, Stephen Lang is suitably villainous as Khalar Zym and benefits from being surrounded by a menacing menagerie of minions (Hey I love alliteration), and Rose McGowan chews the scenery as the evil witch who is quite possibly 'Daddy's little girl' in a most inappropriate sense.

Final Rating – 6 / 10. I watch too many movies. I now look for reasons not to revisit films and subsequent sequels. I cannot extol Conan as one of the films of 2011 – far from it – but if they decide to make a sequel to this reboot I will watch it, this time at the cinema.