CONAN THE BARBARIAN: Hollywood tries to turn Two Gun Bob’s Hero into Bilbo Baggins - By Mark Tygart

I went to see the recent Conan the Barbarian remake with low expectations, very low expectations indeed. Neither critics nor audiences have been willing to give this Bulgarian shot, CGI enhanced, Jason Momoa epic much of a shot.

Audiences and critics are right.

This movie is an interesting failure. It doesn’t understand its own subgenre. It doesn’t get what made the original Conan the Barbarian great.

I’ve always loved the John Milius original Conan the Barbarian.  It was a great B film in the best sense. John Milius made a great Sword & Sorcery (S&S) movie called Conan the Barbarian despite the limitations of budget, cast and special effects limitations of the period. What young guy growing up in the 80s didn’t thrill to the “riddle of steel” or “the Arnold” that Milius (and Oliver Stone) provided in his minor masterpiece.

Milius movie wasn’t Howard but it was in the genre of Sword & Sorcery fantasy that he had created. This Conan remake wasn’t even that.  It is an unholy hybrid. It was like watching the Ewoks show up in the third Star Wars movie all over again.

Conan’s village looks like Hobbiton; it recreates Jackson’s shot almost exactly. It adds a “magic evil mask” that is going to be used to bring back an evil necromancer to rule the world. The villain is actually a Dennis Thatcher of evil; the necromancer witch’s grieving husband. Instead of grief counseling he kills people and considers incest with his creepy daughter.

The movie’s final battle takes place in the Mines of Moria, oops I mean Skull Cave. And Conan fights an octopus creature like the one in Fellowships of the Rings. I mean ripping off Tolkien is fine, but it isn’t Conan.

Oh yes we have boobs and graphic violence to prove to us this really is S&W. As if that was enough.

 In S&W the hero isn’t trying to save the world; he’s trying to survive in a fallen one. Its film noir meets fantasy; its fantasy as a Western. It’s very American and can be wonderful but what it isn’t Lord of the Rings. The morality (or lack of it) is the same of the Game of Thrones; but in general the World is already lost. The hero kills the dragon to get the treasure not save the villagers. Saving Civilization isn’t the point; adventure with your friends is the mission. Conan is closer to Han Solo than Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones than Aragorn.

Peter Jackson really got the Lord of the Rings; that is what made his movies great.  This Conan misses what Milius knew, that makes it second rate. It is more like a remake of Conan the Destroyer than Conan the Barbarian. Wait for video.

Review by :
Our Man in the Balcony Mark Tygart 

Compare this picture to the top movie poster: 

"Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."
— Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword, 1932.
Illustration by Mark Schultz.

I put that quote for those of you who have not read any Robert E. Howard.

Nope no review from me this time , Mark gave me the heads up  . . . . the new Conan Stunk! It always makes me sad when a film maker has such great source material to work from then screws it up so badly.

That's it , read the books ( short stories) and revel in the Schwarzenegger version and be happy :)

Man on an island David Schniepp