The new Conan movie has a lot going for it. Like, it exists. It is a movie. There are actors, and there are lines, and there was a special effects budget. After those facts things get a little…..less good.
Hahahahaha! Who the hell am I kidding? The new Conan movie has just won my award for Worst Film of The Summer (So Far). Since summer is almost over, there’s a very good chance that I can drop the parenthesis very soon.
I have not read the comics, so I cannot say whether or not the new movie hews closer to its source material, but it sure as hell does not follow the steps of the original film. This one wastes nearly a third of the movie establishing Conan’s back story, and holy shit does nobody care. You have to sit through an explanation of the world, then witness an unnecessarily brutal birth followed by twenty minutes of Conan’s youth. Does anyone really give a shit about the fact that Conan was a badass kid? If you saw the original, you just KNEW that Conan was a badass from the moment he was born.
Nope, this time the studios have decided that you will care more about the character if you witness his happy childhood where he single-handedly slays a half-dozen adult warriors, trains with his father a bunch and then witness everyone he loves getting slaughtered at the hands of the big-bad meanie. Personally, I think they were wrong. I totally cared less.
I can only fault the actors so much, even if newcomer Jason Momoa does make a terrible adult Conan. Size aside, he plays the role so seriously that it’s painful. You could have a serious action flick if you at least made the lines halfway decent.
For example, say this out loud: “You don’t have to do this I beg you. Let us turn back.”
Congratulations! I can guarantee, with every fiber of my being, that your reading was better than the film’s. In fact, I like to imagine that this would actually make a decent, middle-of-the-pack videogame. Conan watches his father die at the hands of the evil loser of a Madlibs contest, Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), his crazy witch daughter and his five generals. I could totally see a game made where you have eight levels, the first being the tutorial where you learn how to fight and the level ends with you watching your village burn. Then, for each successive level, you kill off a general, then the daughter, then the mastermind. Simple hack and slash, plus it wouldn’t suck as hard as this film!
The part that really pisses me off is the amount of decent actors slumming it. Rose McGowan plays the crazy witch daughter, Ron Perlman is Conan’s father, and shit, I actually liked Stephen Lang in other, less craptacular films. At least in other movies they had more than just throwaway lines to deliver. Although, I have to hand it to Miss McGowan, she did play a psycho witch who loves daddy a little bit too much (if you know what I mean) very convincingly.
Let’s see…plot….Zym kills Conan’s father to get the last piece of a mask that will let him control the dead, and then he spends the next 20 years searching for the last member of the necromancer bloodline. Conan swears vengeance and stumbles upon the last member of the necromancer bloodline 20 years after Zym kills his family. Coincidence! Then lots of blood happens and it’s all surprisingly boring for an action movie.
Now, I know that this is supposed to be a summer action flick, but the suspension of belief is too much. You literally have to believe that everyone in the movie is functionally retarded in order to enjoy the action. At one point a group of slaves pull a boat through a city wall. That is not a typo. There was no pitched battle beforehand, and no lookouts or soldiers or anyone happened to notice a hundred slaves slowly pull a fucking BOAT up to and then through a wall. Although, you gotta hand it to those slaves for having some serious muscle. After that, everything gets dumber and I would hate to spoil it for you.
I know the movie is going to be a dud because the studio knew it was going to be a dud. It looks like they’re trying to recoup their money by selling about 45 minutes worth of advertisement space prior to the film. I counted the number of trailers prior to the flick and came out with seven. Seven movies that will all do better than Conan The Barbarian are will play their trailers for the 30 people that will go see Conan The Barbarian after opening weekend. Surprisingly enough, only two people left the theater during the movie, but that did make up about 5% of the crowd. I would have left too if I thought I could make this shit up.
So do yourself a favor and go watch the original, super-cheesy Schwarzenegger original, or the sequel, or Red Sonja. Sadly enough, this may actually be better than the Clash of the Titans, but that’s like saying it’s better to have blood in your stool rather than in your urine.
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