Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Although the set-up of "Conan the Barbarian" (2011) is the same as the 1982 version (raiders destroy Conan's village in Cimmeria and thus the barbarian seeks revenge) the story is otherwise completely different. The villains here are Khalar Zym and his witchy daughter, Marique, who seek to resurrect Zym's sorcerous wife, but they need to acquire the pure blood necessary for their Acheron magic.

WHAT WORKS:

• Jason Momoa, as Conan, is excellent; far better than Arnie. It's hard to conceive of a better Conan.

• The Bulgarian locations are outstanding.

• The Costuming is more convincing than the '82 version. Conan's apparel, for instance, is more faithful to REH than Arnie's fur loincloth.

• Better acting than the '82 version, excluding James Earl Jones, of course.

• Brutal, thrilling action throughout with convincing swordplay (unlike the contrived '82 version).

• Corsairs, highlighted by Conan's comrade Artus, effectively played by likable Nonso Anozie.

• Excellent sets/props; it definitely looks like the Hyborian Age.

• Good serious vibe, despite the cartoony, over-the-top last act.

• Rose McGowan as the witchy daughter is ee-vil and creepy.

• Ron Perlman as Conan's father.

• The whole opening sequence.

• I liked how the film stressed the closeness and love of Conan and his father. There's a correlation between true greatness and a close relationship with a strong father-figure and his example of excellence.

• You have to give credit to the filmmakers for effectively illustrating Conan's youthful days and life in a Cimmerian village in general, something Conan's creator never delved into in any detail.

• The film deviates from Robert E. Howard, albeit not as much as the '82 version. Regardless, it certainly adhered to REH's overall pulp vibe. I'd prefer to see one of REH's originals put to film, like "A Witch Shall Be Born" or "Beyond the Black River."

• Stephan Lang as Zym makes a worthy enough villain for Conan, but he comes off too clichéd and cartoony, especially in the final act. James Earl Jones' Thulsa Doom worked better, likely because he was so unique.

• Rachel Nichols' Tamara is solid as the female protagonist, but she doesn't hold a candle to Sandahl Bergman's Valeria.

• The score is serviceable but pales in comparison with Basil Poledouris' score from the '82 version and "Conan The Destroyer" (1984). This score definitely won't be celebrated 30 years later like Basil's. Why didn't they just update Polerdouris' piece?

• There's too much "Modern Blockbuster Syndrome" that appeals to those with ADHD.

• Especially the over-the-top final act, which is way too comic booky. It's cartoony overkill, pure and simple. But, then again, it did bring to mind REH's "Jewels of Gwahlur," so maybe it's not so far off the mark.

• The biggest flaw was that there wasn't enough depth. The film needed more 'downtime

Fmovies: First of all, before I say anything about the movie I want people to know a little bit about me. I went into this movie with an open mind wanting to see it anyway despite the horrid reviews it's been getting from critics. (I generally tend to ignore the critics especially for movies that I personally think will be worth seeing in theaters) the trailer looked pretty cool for this one, so I went in expecting at the least an awesome super gory action flick. What I got was the total opposite and a huge disappointment for me. The critics are right. Conan the Barbarian is overall an absolutely terrible movie.

To be fair, the movie actually starts out with some promise showing us young Conan and a really brutal kick-ass action scene with young Conan in the beginning. After the beginning sequence though, the movie starts to fall apart rapidly. The dialog is extremely weak and uninspired. I kid you not, Conan probably says a maximum of forty words or less throughout the entire movie. Whoever wrote the script seemed like they just stopped trying and gave up after the promising beginning scenes.

Another thing that I found really disappointing was that Conan himself was just not brutal enough. Only for short moments here and there he did some barbarian like things but not at all on the level that you'd expect from a movie titled "Conan The Barbarian" The action scenes themselves were just not filmed well at all. It was filmed using very fast paced cuts and it was very confusing to keep up with what was happening on screen. The camera always seemed to be lagging behind the action, and just when it finally catches up with Conan to see what he's doing, the bad guy is already dead. Great.

The plot was a jumbled mess and the acting pretty much on every level, was completely horrendous. Personally I am a fan of Jason Momoa. After his performance as the savage Khal Drago on the hit show "Game of Thrones" I thought he would be absolutely perfect to portray Conan, but sadly he is very weak in this role and really adds nothing new or interesting to the character. One more thing to be mentioned is that the 3D in this movie is non-existent. (Yes I saw it in 3D and don't think I am bashing the movie just because the 3D was horrible) The sad truth is even if I saw the regular 2D film I would still think the same about it. It is just that bad of a movie.

I dare to say that even 10,000 BC was better than this movie. (And that movie was terrible) At least in that movie you could tell what was happening during the action scenes. I strongly felt the urge to warn people not to waste their hard earned money on this movie. Trust me you will thank me for saving you the money. But, if you are dead-set on seeing it for yourself anyway despite what I have to say DO NOT see it in 3D it really is just an extra waste of money. Think "Clash of The Titans" not one thing in the entire film is 3D except for the ending credits. Avoid this film at all costs. 1/5

OK, you're going to read a lot of reviews about how awful this movie is. It's not. For all the people who claim to have read, and loved, Howard's books, and then trash this movie, they obviously suffer from looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, and they obviously haven't read Howard since they were teens.

Howard's books weren't good, they were pulp. And this movie is pulp, and it's pretty good pulp.

Conan is NOT a 'complex', or 'deep and brooding' character; he's a thug with a sword. And Momoa is the first actor to play him even close to Howard's vision. Howard's plots were not 'deep', his target audience was sexually frustrated 15 year old boys. To ascribe any 'literary' qualities to his books is BS. And this movie, true to Howard, targets the same audience.

Is the dialog good? No; neither was Howard's. Is the action good? Yes. Are the women hot and half naked? Yes. And THAT is the soul of Howard's Conan - violence and sex packaged for the 50's audience.

What struck me most about this movie is that for the first time, I saw on screen a movie that was true to Howard's Conan. Not Arnold's Conan, not the Conan from the broadsheet comics or the horrible comics from the 80's, but Conan as Howard wrote him: brutal, grand, violent and only interested in the next piece of a**.

If you love Howard's books, you'll like this movie. If your vision of Conan comes from anything else, you'll hate it; but in that case, you never 'got' Conan in the first place. Kudos to Momoa; he did a GREAT job, and I'll happily pay to see him do it again. One thing - avoid the 3D version, it's positively pain inducing. Rent the video and watch it in 2D.

Conan the Barbarian fmovies. I've always been a fan not only of Robert E. Howard's fantasy stories but also of the Marvel Comics or the 1982 film "Conan the Barbarian" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. So when I heard of a new Conan I was most interested. With today's budget and cgi they really could pull it off. Oh Man I was wrong.

Where do I start as everything is wrong in this movie Â…Words cannot adequately describe how terrible this movie is. It's that bad. However I have come to my senses to provide you with seven reasons why this film is bad.

Number 1 the plot is "shaky". Here is the plot summary in one sentence: Conan witness the destruction of his Tribe and the Death of his Father by an evil Warlord who search the pieces of an ancient mask that is supposed to resurrect his wife, an evil sorceress that could grant him the powers of a GodÂ… OK??? Obviously a Conan film isn't built on a Tarkovskian scenario but with this Conan we reach an apogee in terms of bad writing. Writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer aren't fit for writing. The least they could have done was to read Robert E. Howard's literature and if as I suspect they aren't capable of reading more than 10 pages, I suggest looking at Marvel Comics who introduced a relatively lore-faithful version of Conan the Barbarian in 1970 written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith. In fact the total lack of understanding the character of Conan not only from the writers but also from Director Marcus Nispel and actor Jason Momoa is the main problem. I am not a Conan fanatic but if you put the word Conan somewhere in a movie title I guess as a Director you need to understand what is the essence of a Conan movieÂ… You owe it to your audience; you owe it to yourselfÂ…

Number 2, the script is bad and as soon as Conan's Mother opens her mouth to name his son before she dies we know we are in for a treat of bad dialogs and overall silly script. What follows is ridicule one liners deliver with zero conviction from every protagonist.

Number 3, where are the sidekicks? In a Conan film good sidekicks are mandatory. I remember Subotai (Jerry Lopez) in the 1982 Conan. He was a cool, loyal, and courageous dude. Every fan of this film remembers the crucifixion scene when suddenly Subotai appears in the horizon to save the day. Valeria was also a very likable and an equally strong character, some sort of Valkyrie that impacted Conan's emotions. In this 2011 version female characters are filler. The dialog of the main female character consists in screaming "Conan" every time she is in danger. Moreover there are no charismatic sidekicks or even interesting other characters. The black pirate serves as a pretext for a black character but has the personality of a "playmobil"; the "Arabic" Thief is so common I don't even remember his name or face.

Number 4, a good villain should have depthÂ… Stephen Lang as Khalar Zym does not do the job. Sure there wasn't much to do with the poor script he had in hands and screaming "barbarian!!!" every 2 seconds of his screen time doesn't help. Plus Rose McGowan transformed by either plastic-surgery or bad cgi (couldn't really tell) as his witchy daughter Marique is so outrageously goth that you constantly wonder if you are in a Conan film or in a remake of the Crow. Net net all protagonists are badly written and played even Ron Perlman, as Conan's father, is wasted.

Number 5, there isn't any cons

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.