By Jason Apuzzo.
Mongol General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
– from Conan the Barbarian (1982).
THE PITCH: Lionsgate reboots the Conan the Barbarian series – or tries to – without either Arnold Schwarzenegger or director John Milius on board. In Arnold’s place comes Jason Mamoa, buff former star of Stargate: Atlantis and the recent Game of Thrones. Pretty Rachel Nichols, not-so-pretty Stephen Lang (buried in make-up) and Rose McGowan as an insane witch with metal claws round out the cast.
THE SKINNY: As Conan says in the film, “No man should live in chains,” but also no man should confuse this new movie for the 1982 cult classic produced by Dino De Laurentiis and co-written by John Milius and Oliver Stone – the film that effectively launched The Austrian Oak’s career as a major star. Hawaiian newcomer Jason Mamoa scowls wickedly and swings a mean sword, but he can’t match the humor and cracked intensity of Arnold’s original take on the Cimmerian warlord. This mediocre, History Channel-level Conan only beats out the original in action, gore and 3D bare breasts.
WHAT WORKS: • The 6’5” Jason Mamoa, a kind of poor man’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, manages to sell the action scenes and look formidable and athletic as Conan.
• Rose McGowan as the insane/bloodthirsty/incestuous witch Marique is arguably the only cast member at home in this type of film, as she struts around in wild headdresses – and with no eyebrows – tasting the blood of virgins by pricking their necks with metal claws. Think of her as a hellish, antediluvian Nurse Ratched. This is also a good moment to mention that this film is rated ‘R.’
• The film’s lavish production design and costumes – that effectively mix North African, Middle Eastern, Persian and Indian influences – create the distinct-yet-familiar feel of ‘The Hyborian Age’ as Robert Howard envisioned it (more or less).
WHAT DOESN’T WORK: • Again Jason Mamoa, who’s given some cool lines to deliver (“I live. I love. I slay … I am content.”) but can’t summon any humor or pizazz in doing so. As smoothly as he chops heads, Mamoa lacks the over-the-top persona required to sell this basically silly material.
• It wasn’t until the end credits were rolling that I realized that the actor buried in make-up playing the ruthless villain ‘Khalar Zym’ was actually Stephen Lang. It seems like a waste to hire somebody that good and make him totally unrecognizable to the audience.
• The movie is in desperate need of a sense of humor. Rachel Nichols’ character Tamara seems like a wasted opportunity here, as she should’ve been back-talking Conan more throughout the film – or else Conan needed a worthier sidekick, like Mako from the original film.
THE BOTTOM LINE: As a standard-issue sword & sandal feature, this new version of Conan the Barbarian isn’t all that bad. It’s got a brisk pace, plenty of colorful swordplay, and enough gore and body-hits to get you primed and ready for the upcoming NFL season. And although a layer of mud and grime seems to cover everything in the film, Conan’s Bulgarian production team fleshes out the Hyborian world with flair and imagination.
But here is what the makers of the 2011 Conan do not understand, in terms of what made the original Conan so successful: the only reason to make a Conan movie in the first place is to make a statement – a mad, Nietzschean ode to the greatness of the pre-modern world. And you’ve got to go way over the top in order to do that properly. You can’t make a Conan movie and pull your punches, so to speak, but that’s to some extent what happened here.
The dialogue in this film should’ve been ripe, quotable and memorable. The fight scenes should’ve featured huge, ridiculous weapons that would bring down an ox – let alone a human being. And the women in the film … should’ve been wearing much less clothing, even though the movie did feature some decent early scenes with ‘Topless Wenches’ (as they’re helpfully described in the credits) as well as a ‘tasteful’ love scene between Conan and his curvy squeeze Tamara. But it’s absolutely criminal to have gals like Rose McGowan or a fanboy favorite like Star Trek green-girl Rachel Nichols in a Conan movie and have them be so covered up for most of it. Were they thinking this was Conan or Coriolanus?
So I basically rate this film another missed opportunity. It’s frustrating to return from so many of these remakes/reboots and immediately want to watch the original version, but here we go again. I’ll be returning to The Hyborian Age this weekend, only this time in search of Thulsa Doom …
Posted on August 19th, 2011 at 9:07pm.
Amen. If John Milius would have directed this, it would have been a genre masterpiece.
I’d like to add there were a couple of lines, especially early on, that just seemed so “modern” that they destroyed the scene. Nothing in the content of the lines but just the way they were delivered.
Wlad
This is an odd coincidence, Wlad, but with all of the film’s head-chopping and Bulgarian locations my mind was actually wandering toward Vlad the Impaler. Eastern Europeans really know how to bring the hurt.
As someone who is a huge fan of the 1982 original, I think it is one of the great missed opportunities in sword and sandal films in the last twenty years is that Milius and Schwarzenegger never made a third Conan film, Conan: Crown of Gold, which could have been a worthy follow-up to the original (do not get me started on Conan the Destroyer). Instead, we get ANOTHER reboot that looks like a direct to dvd film. Too bad
Agreed. And I would add that a fairly recent Milius screenplay was rejected for this current film, which is a shame.
Jason Mamoa was simply awesome on Stargate: Atlantis. I was excited when he got cast as Conan, because he looks more like the panther-ish character in the modern comics.
I may see this film tonight, but definitely this week. It seems like the perfect flick for late summer, when my standards mysteriously plummet, and I just want to see gratuitous violence.
Nice review, Jason.
Thanks, Vince, I appreciate it.
If you go into this movie with modest expectations, you’ll probably have a decent time – but they really could’ve made a lot more with the material. In terms of light late-summer fare, the comparison I would make here would be to last summer’s Piranha 3D, which I loved. That film managed to exceed expectations – and exceed the original Joe Dante film – because it knew to go way over the top. Piranha‘s Alexandre Aja would’ve been a good selection to direct this version of Conan.
Mamoa was downright impressive in Game of Thrones. Too bad he was unable to bring that feral trait to the Conan character.
Finally saw this and oh man oh man did this suck. Points in no particular order:
1) Cookie-cutter script in every way shape and form. I swear I felt the “Rolodex of Cliches” pushing a breeze onto my face as I watched scene after scene that felt like nothing more than ::insert action movie trope here:: At a certain point my friends and I started joking about how we were watching a video game as henchman-boss 3-2 appeared for his fight on board the pirate ship. Some points at which I thought they were just stealing from other films:
1) City of Thieves = Dantooine (including “cantina band” playing while he was there)
2) Discussion of Gods on board the ship with his pirate comrade = I actually turned to my friend and said, “did they just crib that from Clash of the Titans?”
3) Sacrifice scene = Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom sacrifice scene
4) His early village burning = Beginning of Braveheart
etc.
etc.
2) NO characterization. So he says “I slay and I am content” proving that the script-writers chose to describe a character rather than actually present/create one. He says that but absolutely nothing in his character actions actually suggests that is what motivates him. Someone who frees slaves with the edict “No man should be in chains” in no way represents a character who then says what he does about being content with slaying. One is an anti-hero of a sort the other is the nihilist “hero” of the actual Conan series that they in no way depicted.
3) CGI gone mad. You are raiding a barbarian village and you need to call in thousands of cavalry? Also, how is a near barren wintery steppe supporting that many horses?
Why do you need to besiege a city with a ship carried by elephants that does *that one thing* !?!? I swore there was some planned fight on an inland lake or something but, no, it was just “let’s just throw #$*& on screen and hope it works”
You need a spinning wheel fight between the main characters (copying the fight scene from Pirates where they are fighting on the water wheel?) because…? Incidentally, the one thing I will give them the barest credit for is that the fight scenes weren’t the idiotic shaky-cam nonsense that has ruined most modern action films.
It wasn’t spectacular or grandiose but simply felt stale and boring and I nearly fell asleep in the middle because the fight scenes were so uninteresting.
Honestly, the biggest problem was that characterization did not exist. I doubt a single one of them even read a word of the stories behind the character. There is nothing in the film that warrants the title of the character – the movie might have well been titled “Generic action hero with a dash of fantasy elements: Rated R edition”
What makes Conan interesting is that he is not a hero nor an anti-hero, but simply a guy who stabs things and is fine with it. He is not someone to emulate but he is someone interesting because he is so different from what we expect in literature or movies. When the thief he was using to get him into the castle got nabbed by the eel all I could think was “Why doesn’t he just leave him and move on, he got in.” Now, you can agree or disagree with whether or not that would be a good decision to go with in a film but it at least would bring out a *character*. They had a guy with muscles and a sword and that was it which made nothing in the film matter.
The end summed it up best for me: Conan successfully drops the heroine off at her destination. Isn’t it so great that she was going…somewhere (named just once) where, I guess, “people” would “do something” for “some reason”. Heck of a job scriptwriting there fellas.
In terms of what type of character Conan is, I think my friend summed it up best: “He is not a hero. About the only “good” trait he possesses is that he doesn’t rape women. He’ll take their favors as a reward but he doesn’t rape.”
Excellent points, and I would just add that the makers of this film are now being sued and may lose the rights to the Conan character entirely – which would be something on the order of a mercy killing. They’ve already destroyed this would-be franchise, as it is.
Great news – hopefully they’ll lose the rights and someone else will pick up the spear. The only good thing I can think of coming out of this movie is it made John Milius look even better. Say, if Scott can redo Blade Runner . . .
I hadn’t seen that, who is suing them?
Are they being sued for “Defamation of a fictional character”?
::rimshot::
Stan Lee’s people want the Conan rights back. Here’s the link from Deadline Hollywood:
http://www.deadline.com/2011/08/conan-the-litigator-rights-holder-thinks-lawsuit-is-frivolous/