Marcus Nispel’s silly, violent fantasy epic Conan the Barbarian is Hollywood’s second attempt at building a franchise based on pulp author Robert E. Howard’s signature character. The first yielded two films of diminishing quality – 1982’s Conan the Barbarian and 1984’s Conan the Destroyer – and is best remembered for launching the career of future governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose Austrian accent in the films is so thick as to render the bulk of his dialogue unintelligible.
Playing the title role in the update is Jason Momoa, whose muscles aren’t quite as gargantuan as his predecessor’s but whose line-readings are at the very least comprehensible. (His own accent betrays hints of Hawaiian surfer-dude.) Momoa is most famous for his recent turn as a Khal Drogo on the hit HBO series Game of Thrones, a far superior work of hard-R sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Thrones, like Conan the Barbarian, boasts bare breasts and beheadings galore, but beneath the sex and savagery lies real intelligence. All the titillating elements are icing on the cake for a series founded on compelling characters and ingenious storytelling,
Not so much with Conan the Barbarian. The film begins with a lengthy prologue, inexplicably narrated by Morgan Freeman, that briefs us on the essential details of the film’s mythology – and you’d best be paying attention, because the ensuing film treats story and character as so many enemies to be vanquished. The opening scene announces the movie’s savage B-movie ethos thusly: When Conan’s very pregnant mother is injured in battle (barbarians don’t get maternity leave), his father (Ron Perlman) delivers his son via an impromptu battlefield Cesarean, photographed in graphic detail. A warrior is born.
The plot involves a grown-up Conan gunning for revenge against Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), the sorcerer-chieftan who killed his father and obliterated his tribe, the Cimmerians, when he was just a boy. Conan is something of a rock star in the marauding world, his bloodlust not so all-consuming that he can’t stop to enjoy a flagon of mead with the odd topless slave babe. His credo is cogently expressed as “I live, I love, I slay, I am content” – words to live by if there ever were.
On the path to vengeance, Conan links up with a runaway nun, Tamara (Rachel Nichols), whose special blood is required by Khalar to resurrect his dead wife. Or maybe it’s needed to conquer the Kingdom of Hyboria. Whatever. The attraction between Conan and Tamara is instantaneous and powerful – what girl can resist such charming lines as “Woman, come here,” and “You look like a harlot”? Films like this can usually get by with one female speaking role, but Conan the Barbarian offers a second: Marique (Rose McGowan), a scheming goth-witch whose affection for her father, Khalar, is clearly beyond familial. The role was originally written for a man.
Nispel’s previous films include two horror remakes (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th) and the barely releasable Pathfinder. He directs with casual disregard for context, rushing hurriedly from one bloody set-piece to the next, coherence be damned. Action is paramount in Conan the Barbarian; the film is positively bursting with it, leaving little room for anything that might engage us on any level beyond “guilty pleasure.” Some of the action is memorable, some of it tedious, but the violence is inspired. In one scene, while questioning a man whose nose he’d hacked off just a few frames earlier, Conan jams his finger into the man’s exposed nose-hole, causing it to spew icky clear fluid. Now that is some enhanced interrogation.
And, they're off -- this time for good?
