CONAN THE BARBARIAN BLU-RAY review

Can Conan the next generation stand a chance of battling off memories of Arnie's 80's sword and sandals epic? Read my review and watch the trailer, next...

After his mother is killed during childbirth, Conan is raised by his father Corin (Ron Perlman), the leader of their Cimmerian tribe. Wanting to prove to his father he is a real warrior, the young Conan does his best to outshine the other children in the village during training exercises; but when the village is attacked and his father is murdered by the evil Khalar Zim (Stephen Lang), Conan is forced to fend for himself, promising to one day avenge his father.


Let's get it out of the way quickly, this is not a patch on the original 1982 incarnation of Conan, which itself wasn't the best film in the world, but did have a kind of 80's meat head charm. New Conan Jason Momoa may be a big guy, but the shadow of Arnie looms large over him and his performance. To be fair to Momoa, Arnie's characterisation of the role amounted to little more than grunting and chest beating, but he won the attention of audiences with pure movie star magnetism. Momoa's Conan may have a little more nuance about him, but Arnie was always going to be a hard act to follow.

Taking over villain duties from the powerful James Earl Jones we have Avatar's Stephen Lang, an actor destined to forever play bad guys with scars down their faces. He chews scenery aplenty and seems to be having hammy fun doing it, and his character's odd relationship with his daughter (played by a curiously styled Rose McGowan) does add a peculiar vibe looming over the story. McGowan's creepy sorceress is the best thing about the film, clearly trying to make the best of a bad situation after the Red Sonja film she was mooted to star in was cancelled.

Quite who wanted a reboot of Conan, I'll never be sure. The character may be rooted in comic book history (something the Blu-ray extras go to great pains to point out whilst overlooking the two Arnie films that brought the character to international attention), but the whole experience smacks of a studio wanting to capitalise on the apparent success of recent sandy action epics like Clash of The Titans.

There's nothing to set it apart from the Arnie starring predecessor apart from one or two interesting fight sequences. Conan's swordfight with an army of men made out of sand is the standout, although thematically it's more in keeping with the Mummy franchise than this one. Maybe they filmed that scene first and then had their budget taken away, as there's nothing else in the film that matches up to it both in look and in action.

As well as being utterly ridiculous (somehow, the opening sequence is narrated by Morgan Freeman), it just seems so cheap. The music, the acting, the directing... this feels more like a Syfy channel TV movie than a big screen relaunch of a classic character. Directed by Marcus Nispel, a man whose filmography hardly inspires confidence, it seems to mistake violence for action. Skulls explode like balloons filled with red paint with alarming regularity and it's hard not to laugh at some of the plot points. In one early scene Conan frees a group of barely dressed slaves, then has an orgy with them. Hey, maybe Arnie's not gone too far after all.

When viewed in 2D, it doesn't look like you're missing much from the 3D conversion. Some of the action scenes practice what can only be described as 'jabby' 3D, wiggling sharp objects towards the camera, but it wasn't until over half way through the film that I remembered this had even been released in 3D theatrically. The Blu-ray comes in a Double Play format, which includes the standard DVD version as well as a Blu-ray that will play in both 2D and 3D. All I'll say is, if you're thinking of buying a 3D TV, this isn't the film to buy it for.


With a storyline bogged down in too much hokey mystic codswallop, this Conan looks and sadly feels like nothing more than a quick cash grab. Credit to Jason Momoa for adding some semblance of a personality to the character, but I'd rather have seen an elderly Arnie taking on the long mooted King Conan.


Verdict

Special Features: The Conan Legacy, Robert E. Howard - The Man Who Would Be Conan, Battle Royal - Engineering The Action, Staging The Fights, Theatrical Trailer.