Conan The Barbarian

Right, hands up who wanted a Conan re-make? What, none of you? The original, despite is varied quality, is hardly in need of a re-make and what with a few swords and sandals films of average quality filling the cinemas in recent years it’s hardly surprising that this has been a box office disaster. However, just because no one saw it doesn’t mean it should be written off, does it? OK, this is complete gumph, but to give it its due it doesn’t profess to be anything more. To go over the revenge based plot would be pointless, but you’ll be unsurprised to hear it involves bulging muscles, heaving bosoms and bloody mayhem. Oh yeah, and swords and sandals (natch). Talking the lead role is TV beefcake Jason Momoa and, despite an alarming personality bypass in some scenes, actually does a pretty decent job. He is aided by the screenplay which attempts to portray Conan as he was originally written, i.e. a loner who distrusts virtually everyone and who sees women as either an object for his lust or someone that will carry his belongings for him. In fact it’s surprising to see a mainstream individual in a Hollywood movie these days act in such a chauvinistic manner to women. Fair play to the film makers though for sticking to their guns in respect of giving the hero such an unpleasant character trait, as opposed to worrying how the audience would react. Marcus Nispel is the director here and he’s never really come on from his impressive remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre back in 2003. However there are glimpses of his talent on show here, especially during some neat action sequences. In terms of other performances Stephen Lang has some fun chewing the scenery as the bad guy and Rose McGowan, despite over-acting to the nth degree, provides a degree of menace as a half-witch with Freddy Krueger alike claws. All in all this is one of those films where if you can overlook the bad (and yes, there’s quite a bit of it), you won’t be too disappointed come credits time. Plus, if you’re a gore hound this is up a level from the usual "slay but don’t show" mentality of recent films of this genre, with claret going everywhere and a torture scene involving a hacked off nose that would even have Tarantino wincing in his seat.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict

Looks terrible (and parts of it are) but this is a surprisingly brutal and fresh-ish re-telling of the Conan story. Rating: 6/10