‘Conan the Barbarian’ is a movie that starts with a long unnecessary voice over that already seemed so much of a cliché – if not only to discover that it was done by Morgan Freeman. Hence, many critics have said that even in its first ten seconds, you will find yourself already zoning out and losing interest about it. From this voiceover part, you are directed to the part when you see Conan as a fetus. The part when the father cuts open the womb of the mother so that she can be able to see her child even before she dies is way too gruesome. The words delivered were of poor quality but it is one idea that it is one gritty film.
The story then moves on with him growing as a young boy, violent and strong. You then see Jason Momoa already begin taking charge of the adult Conan. One can say that it is one tame film not because it was not bloody enough like other movies such as ‘300’. In fact, it can be considered as R-rated with lots of gory killings and topless women all over the place. It was tame in a way that it does not have enough impact and quality to hold true anyone’s attention. Yes you will see Conan slashing a lot of flesh and blood spread all over but you would realize that there is nothing exciting about it.
This is probably because of the absence of a more solid structure in the movie. Director Marcus Nispel was able to do a find job in keeping everything in total focus. You would even notice a lot of well done shots along with nicely choreographed stunts done in sufficient numbers. The carriage chase could have brought some excitement already but the entire movie with its collected action scenes all just seemed like some adventure game. It lacks purpose of some sort.
With all the muscle and charm of Momoa, you would be impressed with him being the choice to play the new ‘Conan the Barbarian’. There were some relationships built within the plot but these were not enough to make the action movie interesting enough. For it will take more than just the weighty relationships to build up the appeal of this entire movie. It definitely takes so much more than that.
The antagonists in the movie though worked well enough. There was sufficient level of grimace to the characters especially that of Lang’s. Overall, this movie can be compared to a group of arrows scattered like hail flung at various directions. It was never able to come up with a worthwhile complexity that the film itself would come to choose to solve to add more entertainment. Also, choose to watch this in 2-D instead of 3D. The 3D version was not done so well it would make you think it was cheap on the production expenses side. The movie is good but not the type which you would highly recommend to others.