Conan the Barbarian: That barbarian movie

Someone described  to me the first scene of Conan before I even considered buying a ticket. In fact, I had asked a friend of mine to go see it under the suggestion that we would be seeing a  so-bad-it’s-good-then-bad-and-good-again movie, full of bloody over the top combat, one-liners and decapitations. The scene in question goes like this: a woman, in full battle gear, is stabbed while fighting off supposed evildooers. Her husband comes to her side, and she cries out that her last wish in life is to view her unborn son. The husband then cuts open a hole in her stomach, reaches in, and pulls out the baby to show it to his fallen wife. And, of course, that baby happens to be Conan.

The unfortunate side effect to going way over the hill with a concept like Conan is that it has to be done properly (or improperly, whichever you prefer). You either have to go full out terrible, or entertainingly enjoyable with a little side of cheese to make you laugh. Considering we’re talking about an action movie with a budget of 90$ million, there better be some breaktaking action mixed with deadpan unintentionally hilarious dialogue. And lots of gore (can never have enough gore). I could go on about what a fantastic barbarian movie could and should have, but the reality is that Conan has very few of these elements, and what elements it does have don’t quite gel with the others. The acting is atrocious, but the actors don’t have anything to sink their teeth into. The plot is nonsensical, but in an entirely boring kind of way. The action sequences are less than inspired, with monsters taken straight out of The Mummy franchise, suspense ranging on negative values, and an ending that’s too confusing to reach any sort of climax. There’s nothing remotely neat to look at either: the most the director could come up with was a double sword. A double sword, people! As if a double sword and mummy zombies are going to keep anyone’s attention fixed for an entire 30 minutes. For shame.

The other major element hindering the success of Conan is Jason Momoa as the lead character. Everyone knows who Conan is, and how he should be portrayed. He’s brash, dumb but not stupid, built like a brick wall and has long hair. He’s also a barbarian, and probably has an accent in most situations. Momoa is built and somewhat brash, but not really. That is all. It’s probably the least engaging performance by any actor this year, and will be the front-runner for a Razzie all the way through to next year. He pulls off the trifecta of boring you with his acting, his personality and his action sequences. It’s all around pathetic, and yes, he deserves an award for it, but for the sake of the small audience that could potentially go to his next movie, I hope he never acts again.

I’ll never again see a Jason Momoa or Marcus Nispel movie in theatres, and especially not in 3D. I watched Marcus Nispel’s Pathfinder on DVD not too long ago, and should’ve taken the hint before getting my friends on board to buy a 15$ ticket to his latest mess. The guy used stock footage of an avalanche, for crying out loud! And that wasn’t even the worst part of Pathfinder, a movie so bad my girlfriend, her brother and I had to use our own dialogue to fill in whatever the hell was going on on-screen.  It belonged in the 5$ bin at Zellers, next to Transformers 2 and Doom, and that’s exactly where you’ll find Conan in another few months.