And then there's this sort-of remake from one of the kings of the practice, Marcus Nispel, director of such non-essential relaunches as THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and FRIDAY THE 13TH. Ugh. I will admit, I had a lot more fun with this version of CONAN THE BARBARIAN than I did with his horror reboots. I'm a big, big fan of bat-shit crazy, and with every single performance in this film aiming for the 300 section of the arena, it's hard not to get a kick out of it. With supporting work from Stephen Lang, Ron Perlman and Rose McGowan, lead actor Jason Momoa ("Game of Thrones") has plenty of crazy teat from which to suckle.
I'm not here to compare this film version of Robert E. Howard's barbarian creation with the film Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Milius made in 1982 (I choose to ignore CONAN THE DESTROYER, made two years later), nor am I going to compare this new version with Howard's source material. This movie needs to be judged as its own stand-alone entity, and all the good and awful that brings with it. I liked the early scenes chronicling Conan as a young boy (Leo Howard), setting out with much older boys of his Cimmerian clan on a test to determine who should be named a full-fledged warrior. Perlman plays Corin, the boy's father. When their village is ravaged by an invading force, led by Lang's Khalar Zym, Conan is left fatherless and thirsty for revenge.
And then come the monsters, oceans of blood, witchcraft (courtesy of Khalar Zym's daughter, played by McGowan sporting a wild hair style and sharp metal claws on one hand), vaguely Middle Eastern music, naked ladies, swordplay, something about a mask, and the resurrection of Khalar Zym's long-dead wife, which will somehow lead to him being a god. But of that list, all the filmmakers really seem to care about are the violence and a bit of sex, and there's nothing wrong with that.
What keeps CONAN THE BARBARIAN from drowning in its own pomposity is Momoa, who is clearly this generation's best choice to play this part. You can tell from watching the smile on his face as he lops someone's limbs off that he cares about getting this character right. I wish others involved in CONAN THE BARBARIAN's making felt the same way. What we get instead is shot after shot of CG blood, monsters and landscapes mashed into a terrible-looking 3D experience. And while I'm fairly certain that the film has some intentional humor strewn in amid the gore, those probably aren't the scenes during which I was laughing the hardest.
I reject the idea that the level of violence in this movie is excessive. It all looks so cartoonish that it might as well have been turned into anime. I found the blood and violence in Warrior or Drive far more disturbing, despite them having quite a bit less in them. Conan is having such fun with his savage ways that you can't help by envy the pleasure his bloodlust gives him. CONAN THE BARBARIAN is actually a close call for me, but in the end I can't quite muster the enthusiasm to recommend what's here beyond Momoa's feral performance. It's good to see somebody get excited about the kookiness going on in this film.
