Conan the Barbarian
The new version of Robert E. Howard’s Conan on the big screen is no better or worse than I expected. This is not a shining example of intelligent storytelling, but rather a gratuitously violent exercise in pulp filmmaking by director Marcus Nispel, who has built a career on such projects, like 2003’s wretched remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the 2009 reboot of “Friday the 13th,” as well as another violent fantasy, which has been unseen by me, called “Pathfinder.” I enjoyed the film for what it was (I really did), but that doesn’t mean it’s a good film.
I will give the producers credit for finding a natural successor to Arnold Schwarzenegger as Howard’s iconic hero in Jason Momoa, who was a relatively little-known TV actor when he was cast, but now is well-known for his role on the HBO fantasy series, “The Game of Thrones.” I have yet to watch that series, but you can see here that the actor not only has the physical presence for a fantasy hero like Conan, but also– given the right screenplay –the potential for a real dramatic performance. The script for “Conan the Barbarian” is NOT that right screenplay; the structure of the story is there, but Nispel and his writers (Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Sean Hood) pump up everything to 11 in terms of action and dumb down the ideas to the bare bones of what we expect from an action-fantasy. “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” this is not, but maybe this film, which is energized through imagery both violent and sexual (the latter provided by Rachel Nichols and Rose McGowen), will give a real group of filmmakers the desire to see Momoa in the role, in a Conan story that might make Howard proud.
