I’m blogging some of my past movie reviews from Facebook — this is a (relatively rare) positive review of 2011’s “Conan” remake.
*****
I’m not sure why so many people panned “Conan the Barbarian” (2011); I was pretty happy with it. I’d give it and 8 out 0f 10.
Of course it cannot match the original. “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) is a camp classic. But I really doubt the filmmakers were trying to upstage Arnold and Co. They were simply trying to resurrect a profitable fantasy franchise, after Peter Jackson’s success with “The Lord of the Rings.”
I was bracing myself for disappointment after all the bad advance press, then kept seeing various things that I really enjoyed. For starters, the kid who played young Conan, Leo Howard, is off the hook. He’s a great child actor who was well cast; it’s great seeing him alongside the always-awesome Ron Perlman.
This is also a movie that is “played straight.” There is absolutely no attempt to add cheese or humor in order to amp up the nostalgia factor, as so many other 80’s remakes have done in recent years. This movie gives a fan of the original films (and the comics and novels) exactly what they want – a violent adolescent escapist fantasy. It’s like “The Lord of the Rings” if it were an angry 13-year-old on steroids.
There was very good fight choreography for the swordplay. Scenes are staged, blocked and shot so that you can actually follow the fights (a great ingredient in a “guy movie.”) Yes, it’s bloody and gory and gratuitous – but, again, that’s what true Conan fans are expecting.
Feminists and Joss Whedon fans will be pleased by some nice use of strong female characters, both good and evil. And we have a fun (but too small) supporting role by the incredibly under-recognized Said Taghmaoui, of whom I’ve been a fan ever since his brilliant turn as an Iraqi interrogator in the classic “Three Kings.”
It isn’t perfect. Some of the dialogue is just plain bad, for example. There are pacing problems. Conan here is much less interesting than the Schwarzenegger incarnation – the original Conan was a thief and a brute; sometimes he was only a great anti-hero because he was LESS of a jerk than so many people around him. Here, Conan is an altruist, freeing slaves from passing caravans on a whim. That’s fine. But it does feel as though we’re watching Sir Lancelot and not Conan the Barbarian.
Also, for a film that seems loyal to its source material, there a surprising dearth of visible sorcery and few monsters. The Conan of the comics fought everything from zombie ninjas to coyote demons to giant scorpions. There was also another weird departure from the books and comics. Conan and his clan are … secularists? Huh? Did I hear that right? Any comics reader worth his salt knows that CONAN, LIKE ANY GOOD CIMMERIAN, WORSHIPS CROM. We know this because every time three-headed snake men surprise him from the shadows, he screams, “CROM!” as an expletive.
Personal note: I was obviously a fan of the (rather subversive) comic books when I was a kid. When I was between the ages of 7 and 12, I would beg my parents to buy them for me when we stopped at the pharmacy after church in Wading River, NY. Then I carefully hid their contents. Hooboy. These books were violent; Conan eviscerated or beheaded at least half a dozen bad guys every issue. I can’t remember if this was Marvel title or if it was produced independently. In retrospect, I get the sense that maybe a lot of this stuff wasn’t approved by the Comics Code Authority (CCA). At any rate, the writing was fantastic, and the artwork was simply incredible, even though many of these books were in black and white. Great memories.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 