Now Playing: Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Today was the opening day for Conan the Barbarian, the remake starring Jason Momoa as Conan. My friends invited me to go out to see it, and I in turn somehow got our past guest reviewer "2DReviews" to come out with us. It was actually quite the drive to come join us, so I'd like to thank him for coming out of his way to hang out and meet everybody. As for the movie, we had planned on seeing Conan in 2D with 2D, but there are very few screens that are not in 3D. Needless to say that none were near us. Continue after the jump to hear what I thought of this new take on Conan, and if the 3D was worth the price.


The movie starts off with some exposition, slamming you with facts and names of people and places. Now I'm not sure if it was poor speakers in my theater, but the narrating voice, which sounded like Morgan Freeman, echoed in a strange way and I didn't always fully hear what he was saying. Anyways, we see Conan as a baby, as a boy, and finally follow him as a grown man as he quests out to find the man that attacked his village when he was a child. Along the way he meets a beautiful woman and tries to keep her safe from this evil Khalar Zym.

Jason Momoa as Conan the Barbarian

While at first Jason Momoa doesn't seem to fit my idea of what and who Conan is, the story of his birth and childhood quickly had me accepting this new version. Conan was always just kinda dumb, but insanely strong in my mind. Now he's strong, fast, smart and decisive. To me it felt like this was indeed a totally different person, but fate or destiny had plans for him. I feel like the two Conans could meet and I'd be OK with that. Like stories that say something along the lines of "every 1000 years, a legend is born and they are called   insert name of hero here   ". Another way to think of it is to compare it to all the Legend of Zelda games. There are tons, and they seem impossible to fit all together. Eventually in one of them, we find out that the hero Link is in fact not the same character as past games, and is a new incarnation of sorts.

Conan is the ultimate fighter/killer

Alongside Momoa are several other actors that I enjoyed watching. First of all, the awesome Ron Perlman plays Conan's father! It was only made better when we see his giant awesome barbarian beard. I'm sorry, I just think Ron Perlman is cool. Next we have the beauty Rachel Nichols who is just that, a beauty. Stephen Lang plays the evil ruler Khalar Zym. I couldn't place my finger on where I'd seen him before, but IMDB showed me that I knew him as the Col. Quaritch from James Cameron's Avatar. He definitely made a evil looking villain, but his performance didn't wow me . Lastly I bring up Rose McGowan who plays Marique, Zym's freaky sorceress daughter. Her transformation into the character was great, and she was probably my favorite character to see on screen besides Conan.

Rose McGowan is nearly unrecognizable as the creepy clawed witch Marique

While there was lots of action, there was just enough quick cuts and a little shakey-cam to keep breaking the flow for me. It looked like fights were made up of several shots of single sword moves to me instead of smooth quick battles. It also wasn't helped by the 3D which would make things just a little too blurry when moving fast, also making it hard to follow the action.

Speaking of 3D, I'm just not sure why it was needed for this film. There are a number of long vista views of new places and landscapes, allowing for some 3D to work. While for the most part is was clean and had no distortions, it kinda fell apart and became a hindrance to the film in the tons of action and fights.

The movie started feeling long to me while I watched it, which means I was probably right on the edge of boredom for most of it. I never felt tension or worry that Conan wouldn't make it out of a fight, and I didn't feel anything for the romantic interest in the movie. In the end, I didn't think Conan the Barbarian was terrible, but it wasn't great. I think coming out I feel like it was average at the best of times, and a little sub-par the rest of the time. I think the 3D is a waste of money though, so try to seek this one out in the extremely limited 2D screenings. The action will probably look better and could very well hold the whole film up for some people. Oh yeah, there's also a ton of topless women early in the movie, so that might help for some too. Unfortunately for me, I was just hoping for a little bit more.