Rating:
***/*****, or 6/10
Re-imagination
of the Conan franchise and the barbarian character itself,
first immortalized by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982. Jason Momoa (the
former Khal Drogo on the brilliant HBO show Game of Thrones)
has big boots to fill indeed, and does it adequately enough judging
by the size of his biceps and the lack of subtlety and talent for
murder displayed in his take on Conan. This sleeker, more modern
action flick retells the origins of Conan, keeping close to
Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian (1982) combined with some
elements from Conan the Destroyer (1984), starting of as a
wild child who witnesses his tribe massacred and his beloved father
(Ron Perlman!) viciously put to death at the hands of the evil tyrant
king Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang once again failing to portray a truly
disdainful antagonist as he did on Avatar (2009)). Seeking
revenge in the long run, Conan at first sticks to the life of a thief
and a pirate, until he picks up Zym's trace again and slashes his way
to the top through a long row of creepy henchmen, delivering some
decent action scenes and rescuing a beautiful lady of royal blood
(Rachel Nichols) in the process. This princess is intended as a human
sacrifice so Zym and his maniacal sorceress daughter (a delightful
Rose McGowan who is obviously having a ball here) can summon the
powers of an ancient mask and conquer the world. Of course Conan
doesn't make it easy for them, resulting in a string of violent
fisticuffs, intense moments of swords hacking into human flesh and
overly digital monsters to be fought, basically the ingredients most
spectators would have expected. Overall a fairly entertaining action
film, certainly the best in director Marcus Nispel's repertoire
(which isn't saying much with movies like Pathfinder (2007)
and Friday the 13th (2009) on his
score), but never truly special and certainly not as iconic as
Schwarzenegger's original portrayal of the classic Robert E. Howard
character. The movie did rather poorly at the box office, despite
being released in 3-D (though for most of the film you wouldn't have
noticed this), so we probably won't be hearing from Conan for a
while. A shame on the one hand, but on the other, we'll always have
Ah-nuld.
Starring
Jason Momoa, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan
Directed
by Marcus Nispel
USA:
Millennium Films, 2011
