Conan the Barbarian: Ah, Hyboria, where men are men and women are topless, where mayhem and vengeance intertwine, and where James Earl Jones once turned into a real big fake snake. Good times, good times. This is the third film based on Robert E. Howard’s roguish barbarian Conan of Cimmeria, with actor Jason Momoa (from “Stargate Atlantis") taking the reins here after two outings by Ahnold back in the 1980’s (one of which – “Barbarian” – was great, and one of which -“Destroyer”- was complete crapola). This go-round is less faithful to the original stories than the first movie (we get no praises to Crom, and the villain here, Khalar Zym, played by Stephen Lang, is a wholly new creation, as is the plot), and though there are some references to various Conan stories, including “Tower of the Elephant”, we still get the general gist of Conan – a ne’er-do-well who spends his time drinking, fighting, whoring, and stealing, a reluctant hero rather than a straightforward one. That is to say, he gets the girl…but only because he wants to ravish her. When he was a boy, Conan’s tribe in Cimmeria was wiped out by the aforementioned Zym, who is seeking necromantic powers to raise the dead and rule the world. Like you do. As he grows older, Conan, while whoring, drinking, and stealing, is still seeking revenge. In the process of this, he accidentally finds himself in the middle of Zym’s plot to sacrifice a young girl (played by Rachel Nichols), who Conan develops a hankering for. Violent and bloody, you get arrows to various parts of the body, decapitated heads, heads with their brains bashed out, impalements, severed limbs, monsters ripping people in half, a finger shoved in a the hole left by a severed nose, metal claws to the face, axes to the chest, and at least one death by catapult. Throw in one softcore sex scene, and this film earns its R rating the old fashioned way. A surprising cast here – Morgan Freeman does the narration (though I think they could have found someone better suited; it makes you feel like you are watching “The Shawshank Redemption”). Ron Perlman, as Conan’s father, and Lang lend gravitas to their various roles, and Momoa does a good job as Conan (he handles the action bits well, and luckily isn’t given any long speeches to deliver). Creepy weird Rose McGowan plays, sans eyebrows, the creepy weird daughter of Zym, Marique. Nichols mostly just stands around and screams…which isn’t unreasonable given the general chauvinism of Howard’s work. Director Marcus Nispel has a handful of remakes under his belt, most of which deviate from the source material, so it should come as no surprise that he does here as well. I can see how people with unrealistic expectations for this film would be disappointed - Conan doesn’t ponder the meaning of life or other weighty themes. Guess what? He doesn’t in the stories either. The special effects are fine, without being spectacular. The acting is fair to good without being great. It won’t win any awards, but it’s fine for killing a weekend afternoon. Nispel could stand less cutting during his fight sequences, as he makes some of them awfully hard to follow. But otherwise, it’s mindless fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously. A lesser effort than the original “Barbarian” but better than “Destroyer” (though that’s not hard to do). Woodchuck sez, “Me likey.”
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