By James Gilmore
Don’t go into Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian expecting an expert remake of the 1982 classic by John Milius. You won’t get it.
The 2011 Conan is an action-soaked
bonanza without any pretense at storytelling depth. Nispel bombards our senses through an orgy of
stylization and violence in an attempt to mask its slender content, but no
amount of polished veneer can obscure the shallowness beneath. The storytelling is clumsy and repetitive at
best, hyper-extending itself to stretch a thin 60-minute perfunctory plot over
two painstaking hours in an endless string of action vignettes in which the audience
is whisked through time and space to a number of noncontiguous historical eras.
(Let’s not mention the fact that the acting and poorly written dialogue
are enough to make you want to run for the hills.)
Visually, Conan is a gruesome
mishmash of every other fantasy film ever made, numerous elements being ripped
almost directly out of better, more fulfilling constituents of the genre (which
shall remain unnamed).
As for the character Conan, he is barely a character at all. Employing the oft-overused-in-Hollywood
cliché as his template, this impetuous hot-headed central character is more an
excuse to paste the screen with gore than a true protagonist.
The only accomplishment worth lauding Conan for is the duping of Hollywood into spending $70
million
on what is essentially an expensive-looking B movie. And Hollywood executives wonder why audiences
won’t pay up at the box office to see piles of sugar-coated poo...
(Meanwhile, thousands of excellent scripts waste away on shelves,
unread.)
So if you’re up to stuffing a handful of dollar bills down the garbage
disposal or want to watch actors don ridiculous costumes and douse each other
in fake blood for an evening, pick up a copy of Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian. If you are a fan of his kitschy horror resume
then you will probably take this bloated little number in stride.
Otherwise, see aforementioned garbage disposal.
Rating: 1.5 / 5