Conan the Barbarian, directed by Marcus Nispel stars Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Mickey Roark, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan, Ron Pearlman. (And narrated by the comforting voice of Morgan Freeman B.A.K.) Conan the Barbarian has shoddy storytelling, no real plot and silly silly dialog which ends up working oddly enough. Utter cheese but it's enjoyable cheese. :)
WARNING WILL ROBINSON! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Plot:
A quest that begins as a personal vendetta for the fierce Cimmerian warrior soon turns into an epic battle against hulking rivals, horrific monsters, and impossible odds, as Conan (Jason Momoa) realizes he is the only hope of saving the great nations of Hyboria from an encroaching reign of supernatural evil.
The movie opens with the graphic birth of Conan and flashes forward to young Conan, about age ten, who ends up in the woods with four adult bad guys. Against all odds, and the fact that he's a little scrawny ten year old, he takes out four fully grown adults and takes three heads as a prize for the village. What happened to the fourth head? Was it just too heavy for Conan to carry? I don't know. Still I found it utterly hilarious.
However, Conan's father (and the rest of his village) is slaughtered by the forces of Khalar Zym who is trying to RULE THE WORLD! Conan swears revenge, and we jump forward to an adult Conan. Our first scene is an adult Conan going around freeing slaves, because he's a good guy and that's what he does, and of course there's a bunch of topless female slaves. So upon freeing the female slaves they immediately give Conan a thank-you-for-freeing-us orgy. Yay smut! Really there's no point to this scene other than to show off Conan's smexiness. Pointless but still fun, which is overall the feel of this movie.
So the bad guys are hunting for a "pureblood" to sacrifice so that Khalar Zym can resurrect his wife, and the pureblood is of course is a nubile woman that Conan is protecting. This is pretty much as close to a plot you you're going to get in this movie. Now aside from the lackluster plot, there are some really good battle scenes in here and awesome special effects. I thought the people made out of sand that Conan had to fight were really cool. But with really bad dialog like "Woman, come here!" I just found myself laughing at how bad this movie was. Another point that made me laugh was all the gratuitous blood in this film. Someone could get a paper cut in this movie and end up losing like four pints of blood. Totally over the top.
Now I did see this in 3D because it was the only option available at the theater, but the 3D was only really worth the fight scene with the sand people. Other than that two or three minute fight sequence, the 3D really isn't worth it.
Shall we move onto the smexy Jason Momoa? Why yes, I think we shall. *insert evil yet sexy laugh* Jason could wrestle me around in the hay any day of the week! Shirtless Momoa? Winning! (sigh There's no stopping her. B.A.K.) He's hot, but that's pretty much it to his character. Rose McGowan did a really good job playing an evil sorceress. I ended up really hating her in the movie. Also, Ron Perlman did a fantastic job as papa Conan and just makes getting old look cool.
Final word of advice: This is a matinee movie, and by the Throne don't spend money on the 3D. It's a bunch of cheesy fun in classic Conan fashion, don't go into it expecting it to be serious. It's just sex, boobs, blood, and hand-to-hand combat that knows what it is and refuses to take itself seriously. Good popcorn movie, but not much else.
Reviewed and dictated by Katie, written and edited by B.A.K.
Rating for smexiness: Four smexy barbarian sheep!
Rating for actual plot: Two and a half cheesy sheep.
