Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian
Directed by: Marcus Nispel
Written by: Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Sean Hood

Plot:

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.

Review:

I did not have a lot of expectations going into this film. I was just expecting an action packed film that was entertaining. Well not only was it action packed but it got my blood pumping. When I got out of the film I just wanted to break things. The last film that made me feel this way was 300. It was full of gore, great action, and surprising a decent storyline. 

I really enjoyed the storyline because of the way the film was structured.  The director, Marcus Nispel, takes his time leading into the movie to show you Conan’s past and where he came from. We saw how he was battle born. It explained his childhood relationship with his father. Then we finally get into the main story. It was nice that they did not just jump right into the film because without this beginning I wouldn’t have cared as much about Conan. 

Conan, played by Jason Momoa was great. He is a beast of man and destroys everything in his path. Forget the action though, he is a good actor. The only other thing I have seen him in is Game of Thrones, where he did not have too much dialogue. In Conan, Jason pulled off the barbarian attitude and the role of an action star. I would not be surprised if he became a huge action star. I expect scripts written personally for him since there has not been a action star his size in a long time. Yes, The Expendables just came out, but let’s get real, that movie sucked. 

All of the other actors were just okay. Stephen Lang, who played the main villain, had the only other notable acting performance. The main female lead which was played by Rachel Nichols was okay. She plays a feminist who stands against the dominant Conan but then falls in love with him because of his dominance.  This character has been done a thousand times. 

This film does plan on getting a sequel (are we really that surprised?), which rumors have will be written by Jason Momoa, and it certainly deserves it. The ending was left very open so it could go anywhere in a sequel. Some of the issues I had besides the lackluster acting from the secondary cast was some of the dialogue. Jason Momoa makes the dialogue work but some of the one liners he says are just ridiculous. Plus some of the conversations were very straight forward, get to the point. Either way this movie was enjoyable and left a smile on my face.

Rating; 7.5/10