Ok, so I saw this movie. And afterwards I find myself asking, in the immortal words of William Hurt, “How do you fuck that up?”
First some background:
Conan the Barbarian is a “pulp” character created in the 30’s by Robert E. Howard. His tales were usually told in short story format with the occasional novel length story popping up. The setting is an ancient world with medievalish technology and lots of giant monsters and warlocks and the like (your basic fantasy setup). Conan is from a mountain tribe who dwells in a vaguely Teutonic forest. He is supposed to represent the raw force of man before he was civilized. Nobody really goes into Cimmeria (the forresty hills) because the tribesmen will kill you; and the Cimmerians rarely leave their homeland.
Conan is a Cimmerian who is unusually interested in the outside world. He leaves Cimmeria as a young adult in search of adventure. His people’s natural bloodthirstyness has gifted him with (to a civilized eye) near indomitable fighting abilities (he claims that among his own tribe he is at best a middling warrior). His adventures take him down many career paths. He has been a thief, a mercenary, a pirate, a general, and a king. In his long life he has been some of these things many times.
After Robert E Howard’s death, several others have written Conan stories. Ignore these. They are watered down diet soda.
The first Conan tale, The Phoenix on the Sword, tells of a story of a late-middle aged Conan who has become a king. The story is of an attempted coup. Several men plan an ambush in the palace akin to the one that felled Julius Caesar. Conan, despite suffering injury, survives by tearing a decorative axe from the wall and maiming most of his attackers. The survivors he flings from his balcony to the adulation of his subjects. The most interesting Conan stories take place while he is king. So of course they’ve never been used in a movie.
Conan in this movie is played by Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones). He plays a very similar character in Game of Thrones on HBO; Khal Drogo. He is great at Khal Drogo. The problem is the film’s Conan is nothing like Khal Drogo and therefore nothing like Conan. Early in the film we see Conan raiding a slave trade outpost because “no man should live in chains”. Robert E Howard’s Conan owned slaves on several occasions. He would have no patience with those who allowed themselves to become enslaved. He would only have raided the slave outpost for profit.
The desire to make Conan a sympathetic character is the film’s first failing. He’s not a sympathetic character. His morality is that of a jungle cat. If he saves the damsel in distress it is because he has been promised money or her virtue. When he is king he rules with his subjects’ interests in mind because he deems it a superior long term tactic to tyranny. Conan is an anti-hero. If he’s on the side of right and virtue it is because they have something he wants, or because the bad guys have betrayed him.
So the film fails on that very basic item. It is not a Conan film.
And next, even if they were faithful to the spirit the stories; the movie would still suck. What’s at stake isn’t ever clear. Characters are not given motivation to actually do anything. And the evil relic that all the good guys are trying to keep from being reassembled doesn’t actually do anything. Or else it didn’t come with an instruction manual.
And all this is a shame because they clearly had a special effects budget and a decent (not amazing, not good, but decent) cast. The special effects were highly unimaginative and the cast was given nothing meaningful to do.
You can skip this movie. I recommend picking up a collection of Conan tales. Make sure they were written by Robert E Howard; there are many posers.
If you do feel you need to see this film; don’t see it in 3-D.
3-D is retarded.