conan the barbarian

What a terrible film.

Okay, terrible is a bit extreme, but it really wasn’t very good.

I recall the Schwarzenegger Conan films with a great deal of affection.  They were terrible too, but in a jolly, fun sort of way.  They were extremely low budget and Arnie isn’t the greatest of actors, so what do you expect.

The films were also, apparently, not hugely faithful to the original character.  I’ve never read any of the Conan stories, though I recall the comic book adaptation, but apparently Conan is quite clever.  The Arnie Conan is basically a slab of muscle who hacks and slashes his way through the films.

This film is, I think, an attempt to take Conan back to that original book version.  He’s still quite muscly, but he’s also quite clever - well, in a relative sense.  You don’t get the impression he’s secretly a nerd and if he’s so clever, why not learn magic or similar?  But he certainly thinks things through and plans.

The problem with the film is that problem that all film adaptations of classic works have - you basically know the story already.  You know what’s going to happen, either because it’s something you’ve read or there have been loads of adaptation before as, in the case of Conan it’s been imitated to the point of cliché.

I mean, there haven’t been that many adaptation of Conan and while I’m sure it’s well read, it’s not something I’ve read, but the trouble is that loads of films have basically been Conan without Conan.  Think of any fantasy film or (in particular) game that has a barbarian character and that barbarian is Conan.

But also we’ve seen all the baddies too - the evil wizards and princesses that need saving.  It’s all been done so many times that it takes a real trick shot to give it any sort of feeling of freshness or newness, and this film just isn’t up to it.

It also makes some classic modern mistakes.  It’s way too long - this is a popcorn action film, but it’s very nearly two hours long because film tickets are so expensive that’s become the norm - give them better value for money at 2 hours.  But it would have been far better to make it quick, pacy, exciting, thrill-a-minute stuff.

It’s also clearly been filmed in 3D, so there’s the classic “stuff coming at you” tedious 3D cobblers in it too.  This does not make it a better film.

In this case there’s also a few specific problems, in particular with the magic.  The basic plot of the film seems to revolve around the bad guy trying to resurrect his dead wife using magic, but the magic in the film is very inconsistent.  When he finally gets hold of this magic at the end it seems very weak, particularly when compared to some of the magic earlier in the film.  And the magic at the end seems really difficult to get to use, but the stuff earlier seems like a piece of piss, yet is much easier.

It’s just not very good, as I say.