Being a former Arnie fan, I wasn’t holding out much hope for the remake of Conan the Barbarian. As it turns out I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t that bad really.
Jason Momoa is a decent Conan. He’s not physically as massive as Arnie was in his day, but he sure looks like it would hurt if he punched you. He has a face built for sneering and scowling, which is pretty important in this role. Most of his dialog consists of grunting and throaty sentences that make Barry White sound like a Castrato.
The story is pretty average. It’s never going to win an oscar, but it is suitable for a film of this genre. Just enough to link together the action scenes, with only a mild sprinkling of cheese here and there. The battlefield caesarean was true comedy, but I think it was meant to be serious.
The action scenes themselves were a little hit and miss. Some worked really well, but some were a little blurry and shaky. Some of the scenes were cut badly, making it hard to follow the thread of the action. On occasion it got a little hard to see what was going on and I found myself losing interest.
Despite everything, it was a nice bit of moronic fun. I must buy the Arnie films on DVD… 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
I also went to see this on the day of release, on 42nd Street NY. I watched it in 3D, well eventually once I recognised the difference between the 3D glasses and my sun glasses but that is another story.
I dont like ‘blood and gore’ films so not really sure why I agreed to go, but the half price margheritas at the cinema bar made it more acceptable.
To me the film was horrible and as the NY Times said, just Slice, Scream, Splatter throughout. I recognised the pattern pretty quickly. 2 minutes of story, 8 minutes of fight; repeat till end, with the exception of on sex scene.
i actually enjoyed the story, but spent > 80% with my eyes closed, I dont like fighting.
Many things in life are improved with a sprinkling of cheese.