Conan the Barbarian

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.

Conan lacks myth - it truly lacks that sense of myth and wonder that created a whole new genre, and it lacks cinematic vision, it lacks what makes film rather than TV, and while entertaining after a decade of Xena and Game of Thrones we deserve more than this in our big budget movies.

Casting is fine, plot is a little dull, action is half-way to OK - it's just that overall there is nothing to really put life into this - where is the wow! factor, the, yes this is film. Even if you're making a B movie it doesn't excuse it.

In the right hands and the right team this could be storytelling at its best, instead we get a film that thrives on the cliché of its genre. It may have lots of sorcery, but it truly lacks magic.

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...

First of all,let's clear one thing - I'm a big fan of Milius's Conan ( 1982 ) version,but that didn't stop me from seeing this movie. Mainly,my strongest reason for writing this review is because of all the people that bashed this movie and hated it without even seeing it,and this flick certainly doesn't deserve this low score.

When I watched this movie I didn't have high expectations,but the most important thing here is that you shouldn't compare this movie to the Arnie's version,they are two totally different things.The only thing these two have in "common" is the origin story which happens in the first 15-20 minutes and that's it.

Overall,I liked this movie.Sure,it had few clichés and few bad dialogues which couldn't have been avoided,but as I said,overall this was a pleasant surprise.Remember,we are talking about Conan movie here,so you can't expect Oscar winning performances or certain depth of story.This is action adventure movie or sword and sorcery movie to be precise,and maybe that is the main reason that I liked the movie,because that genre is practically dead,so this was certainly a welcome addition.

This movie has all that you'll expect from Conan movie-it's brutal ( there are buckets of blood and violence ),there is magic,little bit of boobs,battles,creatures etc,etc...Certainly not movie for children.

On the acting side,I must say I liked Jason Momoa as Conan,I wasn't expecting to like him( having seen few trailers where they inserted that awful line "I slay,I love,blah,blah" ).Everybody else in the cast was solid,except female cast.While on the whole I didn't have anything against Rose McGowan's Marique character,Rachel Nichols's Tamara was totally one dimensional character and I really didn't care for her( cliché ridden character that unfortunately you have to have in this kind of story ).

This movie was doomed,bashed and trashed before it even stepped into production,first because of the director and then because of Jason Momoa.While I also wasn't thrilled with both of these choices,I gave this movie a chance...and didn't regret it,and I would ( if it ever gets made,which is probably impossible ) like to see a sequel.At least see it,before you say anything and see it for what it is-an entertaining sword and sorcery action flick.

7.5 out of 10 for what it is