Conan the Barbarian
Review by Anthony Morris
|
|
|
Conan the Barbarian
|
|
Remakes only really make sense if you think that movies today can do things better than the movies of yesteryear.
But then remaking Conan the Barbarian makes no sense whatsoever because how are you going to outdo one of the most awesome films of all time?
You
might not think the original is any good, but that's because you don't
like barbarian films; the first Conan is pretty much the pinnacle of
the genre, the best barbarian film ever made, and remaking it is up
there with trying to repaint the Mona Lisa (or whatever cultural icon
you care to mention).
So, having established that on that
level at least this film is doomed to fail, how badly does it fail? Not
all that badly really.
This time around Conan is a hot-headed
killer straight out the gate – or straight out of his mother's womb, as
he's born via battlefield caesarean at the blade of his father (Ron
Perlman) after she suffers a fatal wound (don't ask why she was
fighting in the first place – she's a barbarian, dammit).
So
when his village is wiped out by an evil warlord (Stephen Lang) and his
motley crew he's not forced into a decade of slavery until he turns
into Arnold Schwarzenegger like the original, he just runs off and
grows up into the almost as muscle-bound but slightly more
conventionally handsome Jason Momoa.
The resulting vengeance
plot – Conan tracks down and takes out everyone who killed his village,
hooking up with the “pure-blood” priestess (Rachel Nichols) the warlord
needs to sacrifice to pull off his evil scheme – makes next to no real
sense; its barbarian times where everyone's hacking up everyone else,
so even once Conan's got revenge it's hardly like he's going to become
a farmer or anything.
Still, there's loads of CGI blood,
no-one even owns a shirt, heaps (literally) of people die in unpleasant
but badass ways, there's a fair amount of slave girl nudity and a few
semi-cool monsters rear their ugly heads.
What is lacking
though, apart from variety as the second half of the film starts to get
a little samey, are any quotable lines of dialogue.
When you
think of Conan, you think of "the riddle of steel" and "what is best in
life?" and plenty of mentions of pagan god Crom; without that, this was
always going to be an also-ran.
It's still better than Conan the Destroyer though. 3.5 out
of 5
Conan the Barbarian
Australian release: 18th August,
2011
Official
Site: Conan the Barbarian
Cast: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman and Rose McGowan
Director: Marcus Nispel
|
