Silver Screen Resolution, Take Two: Conan the Barbarian

For my 2018 Resolution Project, I decided to take a page out of Lane’s book and do my own Silver Screen Resolution (hence the Take Two part of the title). There are a lot of movies out there I haven’t seen but feel like I should have, or movies that I’ve simply wanted to see and have yet to get around to it. With a deadline of some kind, now I’ll have to finally make a point to find them, get them, and watch them. My rules for the resolution are slightly different in that:

1. They must be spec-fic (this has not changed).
2. The movie will not be one that is in theaters or that would be part of a Sound Off!
3. They don’t have to be popular – or even something folks have heard about.

But I’ve decided to take my resolution to the next level as well, since I had more than 12 movies on my list that I wanted to see. And since we’re in “Take Two” mode, I might as well up the ante: I will instead be seeing two spec fic movies per month rather than just one. Let’s move on to a movie I just had to watch out of sheer curiosity: Conan the Barbarian. No — not the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’ve seen that one. I’m talking the one made in 2011. Yeah. That one.

Spoilers

The general idea here is that, similar to the original movie, a horde of bad dudes roll into young Conan’s village and murder everyone there in their search for something. In this case, it’s a piece of a mask that can summon the mighty Acheron (evil god and all that). Despite this being the last piece (which they find), apparently it takes them another 10 years or so (I’m guessing based on Conan’s ages) before being able to do anything with it since they still have to find a pure-blooded descendant of the sorcerers who first summoned Acheron. Meanwhile, this gives young Conan the chance to grow up from an angry kid who can kill 5 dudes with no problem (and his dad still says he’s not ready for a sword, but okay — and by the way, why the hell was no one concerned where these dudes came from? They sounded like literal demons) to a much larger and still angry dude who can kill dozens of people with no problem. Remember, bad guys, never leave an enemy behind. That kind of charity always leaves someone to come after your ass for revenge later, and here we are.

By the way, this movie? It, uh, was not good.

Granted, I knew that going in. My father and sister had seen it years ago and were not enthused in the least by it. Like I said, it was their distaste and my sheer curiosity at just how awful it was that led me to this point. That and I wanted to know what sort of Conan Jason Momoa made. I really enjoy watching him as Ronon Dex in Stargate Atlantis, and even though I was pretty sure they typecast him in this movie (the same way I know they typecast him for Game of Thrones as Khal Drogo, but at least there he got to have some nuance), I wanted to see what he was able to do with it.

Unfortunately everything in this movie was bad. Actually, wait. There were about three things I liked in this movie:

1. The bad guy (who shall hereafter be known as Stephen Lang since I legitimately don’t remember anyone’s names because they never really do anything worth mentioning) wanted the mask not just to rule the world, but to raise his dead wife and have her rule by his side. He was forced to watch her burn alive, so for a while he was almost a sympathetic villain. At least until you learn that maybe his wife was evil, but I can still get behind a bad guy who wants his equally bad woman with him.
   
2. The sorcerer daughter of Stephen Lang. She was interesting and had some cool costuming and makeup going on.
3. There is a very brief moment in which Conan is content and sleeping, and while buff Jason Momoa isn’t my style (this is after average guy Stargate Atlantis but still pre-uberbuff Khal Drogo), he’s super adorable in those few seconds. I mean, LOOK AT HIM.

Everything else, however, is not great. The writing is rather atrocious. Conan seems to have a friend he goes on his adventures with, but I’m pretty sure that guy is only there so Jason at least had some lines to bounce off someone. Most of his time is just spent being an angry-looking barbarian man. He doesn’t even have a good excuse to be all angry all the time. Yes, his village was wiped out, but the excuse we’re given is that he was born in battle so his first taste of life was blood. Which, I admit, I giggled at. Yes. The opening scene in which Conan’s mother is stabbed and demands to see her child before she dies — I giggled at it. Look, when your warrior husband is performing an emergency C-section A) while the battle is still going on, B) literally without looking, and then C) holding that who-knows-how-many-weeks premature baby up like Simba on Pride Rock while the battle is still going on around him is just so ludicrous I could not stop myself.

The ciiiiircle of liiiiife!

I giggled plenty of other times, too. Conan’s plans are dumb. Like rolling boulders into a slave trade market before rescuing the slaves…that you just rolled boulders into. Like instead of using his group of fighting men to charge into a slave quarry and easily take out the 10 guards (and I’m being generous here) before finding the captain to interrogate, he allows himself to be captured. This gives the captain extra time to torture another poor guy Conan purposely got captured with him before Conan easily takes out everyone in his way and “rescues” the guy. Everything about this plan is bad, and you should feel bad, Conan. Or when he “lures” Stephen Lang into a fight with zero backup. Or when he keeps going into battle. Alone.

BRO. YOU HAVE MEN.

Of course, we also had to get some bare breasts in this movie — I guess because the original did? Although it makes zero sense as to why Tamara (had to look up her name) would want to hook up with him. Cripes, I think Jason Momoa is hot and I wasn’t interested in hooking up with him. He was too busy looking all extra broody and being angry about life, the universe, and everything. And yet here we are, watching as she suddenly has to have sex with him despite having met him a day previous, living in a monastery most of her life, and never speaking more than a handful of words to him at a time. Oh, and being tied up and gagged by him a few days before that, but whatever I guess.

Also, I’m annoyed whenever women who either are or are very likely sex slaves are so thrilled at being freed they are immediately into the idea of having sex with their rescuers. Um, no. And ew. (Looking at you too, Skyfall.)

I was hoping that at the bare minimum this movie would fall into my Dumb But Fun category of films like Speed and Demolition Man, but it’s too awful even for that. True, I may have giggled and made snarky comments like the guys on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but the rest of the time I was annoyed at the ridiculous actions the characters took or were made to take (after hooking up with Conan, Tamara was suddenly walking through the woods rather than walking back to the boat and that’s how she got captured? Just…what?) or cringing at the endless “I’m a badass” faces Jason Momoa made for the camera, or wondering why they thought any of this was okay.

Why you mad, bro?

People can make fun of Arnold all they want, but at least his Conan was more interesting. He was still a man and made mistakes. He got injured, he had friends and comrades, he assessed situations — hell, he even knew ahead of time to bring a sorcerer on a quest since he figured magic would be involved. This Conan is nothing but a buffed up, sword-swinging dude who is so full of battle-ready testosterone I think I only ever saw him smile once in this movie. The end was so ridiculous I had to make a He-Man joke because trust me, if you saw it, how could you not?

In the end, I hope that Jason Momoa and company had a great time making the film. I hope they all had fun even if the product itself is lackluster. And I do appreciate some of the shout-outs that (I assume) the film gave the originals, such as the similar-ish design of Conan’s sword, the snake designs at the start of the movie, and maybe even the wheel on which the woman is supposed to be sacrificed. The evil mask itself is rather gnarly and I appreciate some of the landscape/city/fortress designs made for the movie. And I am very happy that Tamara, even if I had to look up her name, wasn’t just a damsel in distress and kicked ass on numerous occasions. She even had a knife on her during most of the movie, occasionally given to her by Conan himself, which is nice because at the very least he doesn’t see her as helpless/useless. It’s only too bad that the writers didn’t do anyone any favors.

Oh, and before I go — how the hell did they get Morgan Freeman to narrate the beginning of the movie?? Or maybe the more accurate question would be, why?