0
0
Rating: 1 out of 5
Some movies DO NOT need to be remade. A great idea is to just let the original stay like it is and don’t touch it unless it is truly wise. Conan the Barbarian is one of those films that was remade, and boy did it fail miserably. The original starred the bodybuilding legend and former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The original was iconic with some major stars, a great storyline, some of the “best” transformations, and let’s be real, a great action movie altogether. Well, that changed with the 2011 version of Conan the Barbarian. This film tries its best but fails miserably with a boring story, awful acting, which is a significant accomplishment. The original didn’t have great acting and some okay action scenes. Sometimes it is best to just leave the original alone and find some new source materials.
In this strange version of Conan the Barbarian, the film starts off many years ago. A group of sorcerers crafts the Mask of Acheron. The dark forces of Acheron conquered the known world. Think of Lord of the Rings and the one ring. Somehow, the barbarians vanquished Acheron warriors, broke the mask into pieces, and divided them among the tribes. Many years later, the evil warlord Khalar Zym is searching for the pieces to resurrect his dead sorceress wife. The warlord’s army descends upon the Cimmerian village and finds the last piece of the mask with chief Corin. With the final piece in hand, Khalar Zym destroys the village while leaving only a young Conan alive. Conan swears vengeance against Khalar Zym.
Years later, a grown-up Conan is a warrior and pirate. During one of his excursions, he decides to free slaves from a field. During the celebration in a tavern with his friend Artus, Conan sees a thief being chased by a guard. Conan recognizes him as Lucius, the Khalar Zym’s soldier, that he cut the nose out. Conan manages to extract information on the location of Khalar Zym. Khalar Zym, on the other hand, has attacked a monastery in search of a pure-blood descent of Acheron named Tamara. Tamara manages to escape capture with the help of a monk and Conan. With the girl in hand, Conan intends to use Tamara to kill the one who destroyed his life.
There is a scene in the original Conan movie where a warlord asks, “Conan! What is best in life?” to which Conan responds, “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.” Well, I have a question, “Audience! What feeling does this movie give?” The response is, “My brain turned to mush, it is not entertaining and to cry out in pain from the stupidity.”
This movie tries and fails miserably at trying to be better than the original. Actually, this movie doesn’t even need to be mention in the same breath as the original. With the original, you knew what Conan wanted after his childhood. He became a thief who then killed the person who killed his people. Also, there was a man who changed into a snake and had some excellent sword skills. This film was just all place. We know an evil warlord wants a mask to rule, and his daughter is this witch type girl who has some extreme and questionable tendencies with her pops. The one-liners and jokes are AWFUL. Just give it up.
Mostly this film is a lot of violence and grunting. Conan grunts, and then ahead comes off. Conan roars, and then someone gets disembowels. Conan howls, and someone arms pop off. That is the whole movie. You might have a monster. The best part of the movie is when the pale ass witch blows smoke, and then sand people start fighting. Even that was a boring fight. The final fight scene was laughable, and might just watch a video game being played with a final boss.
Jason Momoa tried his best at this role, or maybe he didn’t. He displayed a new twist for Conan. Perhaps he wasn’t quite ready for this role. Following Arnold is a challenging task for this role, and he seemed a tad bit small for the part of Conan. Stephen Lang as Khalar Zym was okay. Lang is one of my favorites, and he tries. This role and film were so far out there that I don’t know what he was doing. Let’s be real, the man tried to follow up James Earl Jones. Jones, in the original, had some of the nicest and silkiest hair in the film. The man uses some major oils on that hair.
Well, that is it for this film. It tried to be like the original or even tried to be a reboot, but it was dead on arrival. There is no amount of magic to help this movie. Maybe one day, a new version will rise and be decent.
