I have been a big fan of Conan since I
watched CONAN films back in the 1980s. This new film on Conan is a different
take on the legend of the famous barbarian. The film starts with Conan
being born on the battlefield and then thrusting into the back story of Conan as a 13 year old boy for a quarter of the film
before thrusting the viewer into the world of the grown up Conan out for revenge against the evil Shadow Lord Zym and his
witch daughter Marique (Rose McGowan). Zym must get the blood of the last
pure blood, Tamara, who is hiding in a monastery. He will use the blood to activate
the mask (that the barbarian tribes broke up into pieces) and bring his wife back from the dead to dominate the world.
CONAN THE BARBARIAN is like a new take
of the character for film mixed in with some of the crappy writing that hindered PRINCE OF PERSIA. This film is better than PRINCE OF PERSIA, but still it doesn't have the magic of the films that
starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jason Momoa is good as Conan, but he doesn't
have a strong or as interesting story for his character like Arnold did. It also doesn't
help that Arnold played Conan even better
Also the 3D conversion is wasted on the film other than raising the price of the ticket.
CONAN starts off well before just plodding
along with a very pedestrian script. We are introduced to a series
of characters that Conan interacts with only to use them when the script finds a use for them again. So most of the cast of characters appear only to disappear only when the scriptwriters find a use
for them again in the script. Rose
McGowan is woefully miscast or badly directed by Marcus Nispel. Ron Pearlman is
fine in the roll as Conan's father, but he isn't stretching himself. It feels liek a paycheck for Ron and then his character
is gone after Zym kills him.
The
film is beautiful to look at, but I wish Marcus had a better script and/ or not towed the line with what he think the producers
want the CONAN to be. If you expect an exciting film like shown in the trailers, skip it in theaters and watch on DVD/ Blu-ray
or better yet just go watch the CONAN films with Arnold (even CONAN THE DESTROYER is better than this new CONAN).
this movie review is (c)8-20-2011 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to
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