Review of Conan the Barbarian (2011) by Steve W — 26 Apr 2013

Despite its lush production values and slick action scenes, Conan the Barbarian the remake feels like a soulless cash in. You need more than just constant action scenes and gory kills, you need character development too.

Take Conan for instance, he barely gets any character development at all. As a child, he defeats three warriors during a rite of passage and still completes the rite of passage. While training with his father, e learn he is still impetuous and has trouble controlling his anger.

When his loving father is killed by a bandit, Conan vows revenge. But that's the where the problem starts. We fast forward to years later, and Conan is now a grown man. We have no idea what has happened to this child or how his life was affected without his parents.

The film lazily attempts to make Conan likeable by having him free slaves and liberate prisoners, and so dispatch villains in creative ways. This is one of the biggest faults of the film. The villain, Khalar Zim (Stephen Lang), has more charisma and character motivation than Conan. Even his daughter Marique (the walking plot device) wants her father's love. Conan just wants to kill a guy, and he is a hulking mass of angst and fury.

Even the sidekicks are shafted, and do not get to join Conan on his quest for revenge. The main girl Tamara and Conan have zero chemistry, yet hook up in the film because the plot dictates so. What follows is Conan teaming up with a super thief to sneak into a dungeon and fight a Kraken like monster and henchman, only to find out the badguys have left the stronghold.

I think one of the most under utilized aspects of the movie were Khalar Zim's henchmen. They were a motley looking crew, the one eyed archer girl, the big black guy, the man with huge teeth. They looked cool and I thought they would give Conan a bit of a fight, but he spends the whole movie cutting through villains like butter that it gets repetitive and not very exciting.

When watching a remake, you can't help but compare it the original film. Arnold Schwarzenegger may be no acting master, but his Conan was trained from a child as a slave to a gladiator, and suffered as a child and on the Tree of Woe. He was vulnerable. He may lose.

As much as I love Jason Momoa from Stargate Atlantis and Game of Thrones, his thinly characterized Conan is all style and no substance. The only scene I really liked was where Conan fought weird sand warriors and it seemed he might lose.

The movie looks great with amazing sets, props, costumes, and practical and visual effects, but its a wasted opportunity on a thin script and weak story.

Crom would be disappointed indeed.