Conan the Barbarian

Overpriced Bulgarian DVD crap without a soul, imagination or originality. It is worse than any other very bad period B-movie and no better than the worst instalment of Mortal Kombat series. It’s as though its creator hates movies and his own audience and wants to show them as much. The only emotions the film will bring to you are boredom, annoyance and aversion to all of the self-serving violence. And the only thing this movie proves (after Pathfinder) is that Marcus Nispel is currently the worst Hollywood director in the movie business. Only one thing could’ve turned out worse – the masks and costumes, for which I’m giving this one star. (30/08/2011)

A Conan that’s a little better than Conan, but at the same time a Conan considerably worse than Conan. A C-movie to the core, full of confused editing and disjointed shots, non-actors and zero story... But luckily it doesn’t attempt to be anything more and there’s more fighting than talking here, and at a solid pace. If this had had the same energy as the magnificent introduction from his childhood all the time, I would have been absolutely content. But then it’s just too... Well, just neither (laughably) bad nor (really) good. And the result is more an average imitation of Werewolf (and dozens of other movies; what Nispel liked in some movie, he put into this) than a continuator of the original Conans. (18/08/2011)

I was brought up on Howard’s Conan books and so I’m disappointed (again!) that the movie focuses just on the main hero and the world where the story takes place. It would have been so easy for the creators to borrow one of the countless already written stories, but they didn’t (ok, there’s a mention of the Elephant Tower, but nothing else) and all they did was stuff a couple of action scenes (miserably filmed by Nispel) and a couple of dialogs (that sort of make sense) into the clichéd template. The only positive thing here are the actors, headed by the superb Momoo who at last is a honest to goodness Conan who looks like he has stepped out of the cover of one of the books in my bookcase. Both Lang and McGowan made respectable villains. The third star is for solid production design and special effects, and the blood spurting from cleaved heads also made me happy. I really hope there will be a sequel, but please with a different screenwriter (one good one would be better than three cooks) and with a brand new, better director. (20/08/2011)

A great Conan; not a great film. I didn't believe Momoa (who on earth made up that name?) and he turned out to be a very likable Barbarian, and please I absolutely did not find this movie believable. Except that I really started enjoying the grand celebration of violence right at the beginning. Out of all his options, Conan always chooses the most brutal, to the point of being hilarious, and after all the sappy tough guy pretenders in other big budget movies, this was such a nice axe to the face. All the problems of this film hang on the shoulders of the director, who not only apparently only knows two types of shots (close-up and long shot), but more importantly, quite predictably, was not very capable of stretching the space beyond a horror film (a genre that mostly operates on a few square hectares) to a grand imaginary landscape. As such, the film breaks down into a couple of sub-segments, even divided by a pathetic title telling where the scene is currently taking place. Still missing was the 9:50 zulu. The action scenes aren't especially bad, but they're weirdly cut and not exactly pleasing to the untrained eye, so I’m still not really sure how the final action scene turned out. Sorry. Oh, and the film could have done without the special effects, for example, notice that the digital blood spatter is repeated and looks almost ridiculous when Conan gets hit in the back, sprays the same two liters as when the protagonist chops off some poor guy's head with a sword, then has a thorn scratch on his back. Plus, the special effects studio is most likely not exactly at the top of its field, because the bungling of the perspective on some of the special effects shots wouldn't be forgiven even by the ancient Egyptians. Anyway, compared to the disgustingly faggy and horribly sterile Thor, it's fun to the point where I'm considering four stars. (14/09/2011)

Conan the Barbarian? Don't let anyone laugh at you. More like Cohen the Barbarian for Cosmopolitan readers in an amateurish performance by the director, who should only participate in A-filmmaking as a passive observer. By far the worst film of the year - buy Solomon Kane instead, which is light-years more exciting, darker and more brutal, and not these races in casting raspberries on the ground. (18/08/2011)