Conan the Barbarian

I’ve always thought that “Conan the Barbarian'” is Arnold’s true first movie. I mean the previous movies are alright and fine. But they aren’t the type of movies that we know and love Arnold to be part of. And I’ve been real excited for Conan, I’ve never seen it before but I have seen many clips and they all look amazing. So I dove into this movie thinking it was an action packed, epic story of a great warrior. And boy was I wrong, but I wasn’t that disappointed. Full details after the jump.


The story is a grand one to say the least. After Conan’s family was pillaged and he saw his family die in front of him. He was taken as a slave for the Snake Cult. Later his slave owner noticed his strength, takes him to fight at a gladiator style arena. As Conan discovers his skill as a warrior, he started to become one of the greatest warriors and swordsman. After he found it in him to ditch his owner, he knew his ultimate goal was to avenge his family. After meeting a couple more warriors, he becomes friends with Subotai and the other became his lover, Valeria. They were off on a quest to bring back the daughter of the great King Osric, and kill Thulsa Doom, the man that killed Conan’s family.

I must say, for an action movie this is a very dry movie. For the first half of the movie, nothing really amazing happens. It is mostly back story to get you more familiar with Conan. There is a lot of back story for Conan; how he came to be, how he meets both Subotai and Valeria, the adventures the three go on and the final battle with Thulsa. It is all a lot of story in this movie, but because there is not a lot of dialogue, it gets boring at times. There is a lot of shots of Conan walking along, and training, not needed in my opinion. A lot of filler, not enough bang to keep my interest throughout the movie.

Arnold fits Conan like a glove.

But what I think they got right was the cast. Arnold plays the best Conan, he fits that role to a T. A big muscular man with thick Austrian accent. I cannot think of Conan being any other way. It’ll be interesting when the new 2011 movie comes out to see how Jason Momoa fills the shoes. But we cannot forget James Earl Jones playing Thulsa Doom. God damn that man can play evil characters amazingly. His deep voice and presence is enough to persuade me to serve him. And I do really like Subotai and Valeria, they support Conan's character greatly. And it doesn't hurt that Valeria is real good looking and plays a strong woman warrior fabulously.

The action scenes are commendable to say the least, there is a lot of great fights and sword action. There is not a lot of silly camera angles to enhance the fight, it is great on its own. But sometimes the fights cannot be taken too seriously when there is a cartoon amount of blood being squirted out, thought it brings a bit of humour. And talking about humour, there is a scene where Conan just punches a Camel, not sure why but got a chuckle out of me.

Subotai, Valeria and Conan

Though as good as the movie is, I still feel like I wasted a lot of time with Conan the Barbarian, I really wish they shorten this movie from 129minutes to 100. There is a lot of filler that is not need. But when the movie does get going, it is a good movie. With a great cast and thrilling action sequences, it is enough to keep you awake. I am sort of hesitant with Conan The Destroyer, but we’ll see if I do enjoy it.