Director: Marcus Nispel
Cast: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan
Certificate: 15
Running Time 112 Minutes
Synopsis: ‘The tale of Conan the Cimmerian and his adventures across the continent of Hyboria on a quest to avenge the murder of his father and the slaughter of his village.’
German born Director Marcus Nispel, who started his career in Hollywood working on the music videos for the likes of Janet Jackson and Faith No More has had ups and downs since his movie debut in 2003 with the Platnium Dunes produced reboot of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Since that box-office hit opening,
which while not even coming close to Tobe Hooper’s classic wasn’t the disaster we were all expecting and has some great moments. Unfortuately its all been downhill for Nispel, his follow-up PATHFINDER sank without trace while the less said about his venture back into the horror remake genre with the bland FRIDAY THE 13TH the better. So does his third attempt at a remake with the Robert E. Howard (SOLOMAN KANE) creation CONAN THE BARBARIAN fair much better?
Opening with a strange choice of voice over from Morgan Freeman, his gentle narration not fitting in with the battle scenes on screen. He describes how a mask that grants the wearer unlimited powers of the Gods, was smashed into pieces and each of them scattered to the leader of Hyboria’s warrior clans. All this highlights the need to hide the pieces in order to stop other evil lords piecing them back together and ending the peace that has been restored to their world just to match these lords’ obsession for power. Within one of these opening battle scenes we see Ron Perlman violently having to deliver his newborn son on the battlefield while his wife lays dying, in her last breath naming him Conan. They are some great battle scenes throughout the film with villian Stephen Lang’s Khalar Zym showing up early on to set a young Conan on his quest for vengeance, following his father’s death. Jason Momoa (GAME OF THRONES) does a decent job of filling the role of Conan and certainly on the stregnth of his commitment in this movie, should see his star power rise. Its when the writer’s introduce Tamara (Rachel Nicols) when the film becomes muddled, the sub-plot of her being a decendant of a bloodline needed by Zym to ressurect his dead wife with the help of his equally evil daughter’s (Rose Mcgowen) witchcraft powers never really making sense enough to grab your interest.
Without having the A-list actors you would expect in a film of this size, you can see that most of the budget has been used on the production design, the locations with the help of the visual effects suiting the film well, and Nispel certainly likes dispatching any victims onscreen with more blood flowing than in all three of his previous films put together. One stand out sequence featuring Conan battling human-looking creatures created from sand features some stunning special effects and stunt work.
The filmmakers certainly have a hard task to live up to, not just trying to match Schwarzenegger’s 1982 iconic portrayal but the great John Milius’ epic writing and direction, in the end never really blowing us away to possibly create a ongoing new franchise. Just like Nispel’s first film not a bad attepmt but certainly a missed oppotunity with promising material.
