David O'ConnellConan the Barbarian
August 16th 2011 01:18
First, the positive news. This needless remake does indeed do something right: it ends. Now, the less than positive news: for the preceding 114 minutes, it seems like it never will.
It’s hard to quantify the physical pain generated by this torturous, misguided remake – yet another one rolling off the rapidly widening Hollywood conveyor belt. Much of my distress is attributable to a chronic case of personal stupidity, if anything, in a steadfast refusal to walk out on any film in a cinema, regardless of its worthlessness.
Drafted in from small screen duties, where he’s inevitably bound to appear once again, buffed-up Jason Momoa steps into the shoes of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan, a young Cimerrian warrior. As a boy he sees his father (Ron Perlman) murdered and so naturally begins his continent-crossing quest, as an adult, to exact revenge.
Conan the Barbarian is a stupendously dull, pointless, moronic film. As one-note as you can imagine it romps from one mind-numbing fight scene to another with little regard for breaking up the tone or developing individual traits for the monstrous legion of foes tossed into Conan’s path. Risible dialogue litters the landscape, with the expected layering of corniness sprinkled across the top to complete the witheringly dim-witted perspective.
Conan creator Robert E. Howard must be turning over in his grave. Hired gun Marcus Nispel, who isn’t fit to make sandwiches for John Milius, adds another generic bow to his already tainted CV of rehashed B-grade subject matter. Composer Tyler Bates does a reasonable job of adding depressingly modern colouring to his music, but with the shadow of Basil Poledouris’s original score – one of the greatest compositions in film history - looming large over the creation of every single cue, it’s almost impossible to give it a pass mark.
The acting is generally atrocious though Laurence Olivier would struggle for credibility with force-fed lines like “I live, love, slay and am content”, as Conan does with a straight face just before jumping into the sack with the requisite, and incredibly bland, love interest played by Rachel Nichols.
Ron Perlman is tragically, but predictably wasted, whilst Stephen Lang continues cultivating the embarrassing, scenery-chewing demonic, bad guy persona he got a headstart on in Avatar (2009). As the evil daughter with talons, Rose McGowan, who clearly must now enter the depths of creative hell in search of her next pay cheque, gives an insipid Helena Bonham Carter-lite portrayal – and tellingly under so much make-up and prosthetic effects as to render her almost unrecognisable. I said almost.
After the stunning depth and diversity of films screening at the recent Melbourne International Film Festival, this is a painful case of crashing back down to earth with an almighty thud. For those clinging to the past, your memories of the original - imbued with adolescent guilt as they may be - will be soiled forever should you succumb to curiosity.
For everyone else, unable to see the trees for the forest, you’ll be getting exactly what you deserve: a painfully extended viewing experience, enduring what is surely one of the most superfluous, if not one of the worst films ever made. Conan the Barbarian (2011), like disease and hair loss, simply has no reason to exist in the world. And yet, it now does.
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Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
I am midst my take on it...and am including the ludicrously mixed up set and costume desgins spanning different eras and cultures.
The truly depressing fact is, the mind numbed youth will flock to it, and so we can expect more such woeful films...
cheers
fog
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Jason, didn't you just find the repetitive, endless fight scenes mind-numbing after a while? I thought it did take itself too seriously to be honest - what humour was in it seemed entirely unintentional!!
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Anonymous
I am thankful you did not have to experience this abomination.