Conan the Barbarian





Directed By: Marcus Nispel

Starring: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, Rose McGowan, Stephen Lang, and Rachel Nichols

August is a weird month of the film year.  The blockbuster season is not quite over, while the fall season hasn't quite begun.  The transition has always been turbulent at best.  Hollywood doesn't know how to go from releasing big budget summer blockbusters to their lower budget counterparts.  In the last few weeks, we've had Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Final Destination 5, and Conan the Barbarian.  That's a serious fluctuation in quality over the last few weeks.  A fresh reboot to a famed series is followed by another installment in a dead horror series.  These both are followed by Conan the Barbarian, a bloody action picture that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Conan (Leo Howard- young Conan; Jason Momoa- adult Conan) is a boy born of war.  His mother is on the battlefield in combat during his birth.  She dies on that battlefield that day.  A young Conan is raised and trained by his father Conn (Ron Perlman) in the town of Corin.  The warlord Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) lays siege to Corin in search of the final piece of a legendary mask, the most powerful weapon known to man.  Khalar Zym murders Conn, and leaves Conan for dead.  Conan survives and vows for revenge.  As an adult, Conan pursues the warlord seeking this vengeance.

Conan the Barbarian is nothing more than what you would expect it to be, a decent action picture that passes the time.  It's bloody.  It's explicit.  It's predictable.  You're not going to find fancy or profound filmmaking.  You'll find an operational action flick that gets the job done.  One thing that I have to say about the movie is that Leo Howard's young Conan is a badass.  Seeing a kid fight the way he does is quite impressive.  The head count he amasses in his short time on screen is even more impressive.  Marcus Nispel's reboot of Conan the Barbarian is a gory affair that crosses no new terrain.  Decapitated cadavers and topless women are everywhere.  You need at least a few beers to get through this one.  Conan the Barbarian gets a 0.06% rating.