Review of Conan the Barbarian (2011) by Robert H — 31 Mar 2013

"Conan the Barbarian" has a lot of blood & violence, a lot of topless maidens and a few interesting creatures. If that is the only thing you're looking for in a fantasy movie, you might have a good time, but for everyone else the lack of originality in the story makes this a big disappointment.

It has some interesting sets and costumes and while the visual effects vary from good to just average the look of the film is the best part of it, with a lot of characters capturing your interest based solely on the fact that they look interesting.

The sets also look really great and when you see the characters enter a lost city or a forbidden temple, you want to follow them because you want to see more of their surroundings. The monsters in the film are kept to a minimum and seen more as foreign elements in this world than a "oh, there's another dragon, let's go slay it" type of thing, which is fun too.

There are a couple of laughs here and there at the fact that the violence is so over the top a lot of characters feel like balloons filled with blood that were waiting to explode but these aren't played for laughs, they're more like lapses in judgment from the director.

There just isn't any payoff to all the interesting elements and while it starts off strong, with "Conan" being kind of a frightening protagonist that you follow out of a mix of respect and not wanting to get on his bad side, as the movie goes along he loses that edge displayed at the beginning and becomes a generic fantasy protagonist, good at fighting, noble of heart and after the girl of his dreams who's been taken by the evil sorcerer.

If the protagonist is an anti-hero that's fine because we'll get to like him as the movie gets along and we get to know more about him and his code of honor but instead of going to deeper character development the movie just plays it so safe.

"Conan the Barbarian" just ends up taking no chances whatsoever so it feels like a paint-by-numbers 80's barbarian fantasy adventure movie with special effects from 2011. (2-D Blu-ray, September 3, 2012).