TITLE: Conan the Barbarian
STARRING: Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan, Saïd Taghmaoui, Leo Howard, Bob Sapp, Ron Perlman
DIRECTOR: Marcus Nispel
STUDIO: Nu Image Films, Millennium Films, Paradox Entertainment, Lionsgate
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 112 min
RELEASED: August 19, 2011

By Eric Stuckart
Creator, Destroyer

“I live, I love, I slay, and I am content.” In one short statement, the new reinterpretation of Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery character Conan the Barbarian pretty much finds his main words to live by. Not an abomination by any means, the film flies by on the edge of a blade in a flurry of quick cut editing and gory kills, interspersed with the occasional nuisance of trying to tell the story. That of all things is the most glaring problem with Conan the Barbarian.

Despite the over the top nature of the violence, the film has a decent enough setup. Literally cut from his mother’s womb on the battlefield, Conan grows up the hard way, watching his father (Ron Perlman) and his entire tribe brutally slain at the hands of the evil warlord Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang). It seems that Zym is on the hunt for all of the pieces of a mystical mask that grants its wearer godlike powers. So you’ve got the vengeful, bloodthirsty Conan at odds with a vengeful, bloodthirsty warlord looking to become a god. Sounds like a great setup for a bloody good time. If only…

The film flashes forward years later, where Conan grew up, bulked up, and has aligned himself with a bunch of like-minded seafaring men not unlike pirates, who just live for the day and emancipate the random group of slaves from time to time. Incidentally, it’s after setting free their latest group of lucky survivors that Conan runs into soldiers who he remembered from the fateful day in his childhood. And thus he maims, beheads and beats the living snot out of anyone dumb enough to get in his way, until he finds out who exactly he’s up against and where he’s hiding. His plans end up crossing paths with Tamara, on the run from Zym. The last of a royal line, the sacrifice of her ‘pure’ blood is needed to make Zym’s mask functional. She asks him to escort her to safety, but he has better plans. He uses her as bait to attract Zym, and his daughter Marique, a powerful witch played by Rose McGowan.

Far too often, Conan the Barbarian is just a bombardment of scenes without a whole lot of connecting from one plot point to another, aside from the announcement of a new locale. And the things that would add to the story and make it more than just a gory tale of revenge with swords and the occasional bit of fantasy are eschewed in favor of narration to fill in the gaps. Personally speaking, it seemed like in a movie like this, a montage would have better suited the purpose of the film, and the narration just seemed a little lazy.

Also, from time to time the dialogue didn’t really seem to fit the time, and Rose McGowan’s mannerisms felt unnatural. While I haven’t seen too much of her work aside from Grindhouse and a couple older movies, and the occasional episode of Charmed, she didn’t really seem like the right person for the character. What she brought to it was more of the typical snark and youthful belligerence that fits fine with her other roles, but not so much in a fantasy that takes place over a couple thousand years ago. And even with that, she wavered in and out, almost as if they tried reminding her of that fact and eventually just said ‘fuck it’ towards the end. It’s not like her stepping up her acting would have made the film much better anyways. I was also a little creeped out by her odd, borderline Electra complex relationship with her father.

While it’s not a terrible movie, and it definitely had its entertaining moments, Conan the Barbarian felt more like something that you would find on the direct to dvd market, or a made for cable film. Feeling rushed without the structure of proper storytelling, it pales in comparison to the 1982 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in all ways but visually, and that’s arguably the least important aspect in fantasy storytelling. If the story isn’t interesting enough to keep viewers invested, who cares about the set pieces? If that were the case, then many of the classics would be deemed unwatchable by our standards, and people would be chomping at the bit to lap up George Lucas’ latest alterations to the original Star Wars trilogy.

RATING: 5.5/10

Front page image and interior stills from rottentomatoes.com.