Review of Conan the Barbarian (2011) by Martin H — 18 Aug 2012

This isn't a re-make but rather a re-boot. The original became this huge tailor made production around Arnold and his "personality"... This one is the darker "sword and sorcery" Conan found in the books and comics.

You have a Rock and Roll Conan but the musical score is not heavy metal but rather classical sweeping music. Narration is supplied by Morgan Freeman and the new Conan is smaller, leaner and quicker -- Jason Momoa is more menacing and not quite as likeable.

He also isn't really well known. "Arnold" was already a super star when he did the original Conan. Momoa's Conan is a man who wears many types of "hats": he is a pirate, a thief, a warrior and a lover, all of these aspects are much like Tarzan and add in the setting of the deserts and fantastical ancient nomadic setting instead of the Jungle and you have Conan.

Look, no one can or would want to "replace" Arnold in that role since it is so iconic. This is a re-imagining the Conan character in what I thought it should be all along. (Sorry Arnold fans).

So, for this I actually enjoyed this movie. It also is quite successful worldwide and epecially in Asia as an action movie. So far, it has only pulled in 21 million but that doesn't include many other factors.

It is heavily downloaded on asian websites in fact it would be hard to find a chinese or japanese guy who hasn't seen this movie... And most of these guys loved this movie btw... We See Conan's back story as a child and it relates to his later nomadic warrior nature and his thirst for revenge.

It also has a wonderful story that dates back to this origin nicely involving an evil warlord who is trying to get all metaphysical and bring about a wizardly evil kingdom to bathe the world in blood and evil.

.. So, Conan must fight him to prevent this, of course. Perhaps there could have been more evil monsters to battle and some more hot babes... there were a few that were only briefly seen. Apparantly, they will re-make "Red Sonja" before they make "Conan 2" for some reason.

Personally, I think "Red Sonja" is a bad idea since girls these days are into vampires and Harry Potter type withcraft. Really tame kind of almost soap opera type fantasy. I think "Red Sonja" could easily fall into the trap of being sadly out of place in what young women and boys want to see in an action movie.

.. When they make Conan I really hope they will follow through and give it the financing and script it deserves and a rock and roll sound track, more monsters, and more honeys (apologies to femnists) LOL and ticket sales will go through the roof.