Conan [Blu-ray]

I have deliberately not read any of the other reviews of this film, to avoid being influenced one way or the other - so apologies if I do end up merely repeating what others have to say.First of all, Jason Momoa was an excellent Conan. One of the things that the writers of this movie did well was to create a Conan closer to R.E.Howard's character than Schwarzenegger ever was in the 1982 film. Momoa was not a grunting neanderthal, and there was even some dialogue that reminded us what a Hyborian "barbarian" was supposed to be. Momoa also scored as far as his physique was concerned. It isn't really fair to make comparisons with the Schwarzenegger film, but Arnold was, to be honest, far too bulky. Conan is tall, muscled and immensely strong, of course, but he is also lithe and quick - he spent time as a thief, for goodness' sake! Momoa's physique was impressive without making his quick reflexes and fancy footwork unbelievable. I felt that he hit the right note in terms of expressiveness, as well - yes, he did broody and laconic well; but at the same time he was able to smile and laugh, just as Conan should be able to do.The production design was superb, and I felt it (mostly) imagined the Hyborian world well. I only had two grumbles: first, that when Conan returned to Cimmeria at the end of the film it was clearly far too warm(!); and second, that we never saw enough of the Hyborian cities - too much time spent in the countryside or amongst ruins, and not enough time in the teeming cities that characterise many of the original stories.Ron Perlman was excellent as Conan's father; the villains were pretty good (although Rose McGowan was a bit limp and the heroine, Tamara, was a bit character-less). The boy who played the young Conan was superb - extremely well cast, and well acted.Unfortunately, the story was so stale that I cannot give the film five stars. Why re-hash the plot of the 1982 film? The best Conan stories were those written by R.E.Howard, his creator, and yet the writers felt they had to make it the same old "revenge for killing his family" plot. So tired, so boring.The screenplay was good in parts, but execrable in others. Some of the editing was poor, especially at the end, which was a shame, because otherwise I thought the film looked brilliant.Overall, I did enjoy this film, even though I have reservations. I sincerely hope that they do make a sequel with Mamoa reprising the role of Conan, and hopefully they will go back to some of the original source material ("Red Nails", perhaps, or "Beyond the Black River" - or even some of the later, sanctioned stories by De Camp and Carter - "Conan the Buccaneer" would translate well to film).I cannot give it five stars, but I am happy to award it four. Even if you are a Conan purist, I don't think you could be so mean as to dislike it too much!

My first introduction to the Conan character was via "Savage Sword of Conan #5" as an 11 year old back in the mid seventies - this issue adapted a classic story of RE Howard's called "A Witch Shall Be Born" & the vivid painted cover depicted Conan fighting off Vultures whilst he was being crucified - powerful stuff for a young, imaginative mind to absorb - I went on to collect all the comics & magazines from 1970 to the mid 80's & the excellent Sphere paperback series with the iconic painted Frank Frazetta covers - Roy Thomas' comic-book stories (adaptions & new fables) were very good but nothing compares to Howard's original stories & that's really one of the main drawback's to this new motion picture version of Conan The Barbarian.There's a lot to like about this film if you are a Conan fan - the Palaces, Towers, Villages, Bars etc have been recreated just as you would have imagined them from Howard's novels - there has been no compromise in terms of violence, attitudes (including sexism), motivations etc & all of this fits in with Howard's vision of the Hyborian Age - the different tribes, sorcerors, monsters are all there - the "Sand Warriors" & "Lurker in the Pool" could have sprang up from nowhere to test Conan's mettle in any of REH's tales - the special effects, fighting scenes, locations etc all suggest a good quality production - so what is the main barrier to this being a special film? - it's probably that the main storyline is prolonged & a little inferior to any of Robert Howard's classic tales - I think they could have easily incorporated a couple of his story lines into the bigger picture - for example Conan could have met the thief who comes to his aid via "The Tower Of The Elephant" - I haven't seen the 1982 Conan film for some years but I seem to recall that they used "The Thing In The Crypt" as a nod to REH in that version.Individually there are plenty of good scenes & ideas - Conan's early "test of courage" where he inadvertently ends up fighting alone against five fearsome warriors is well done - if a little hard to swallow in terms of credibility - Conan's placement of the Jailer's keys as he leaves the prison compound was inspired & not out of character for his grim sense of humour - his use of another captive to send a message to his main adversary did seem contrived & unlikely though (where did the sling come from??) - basically the sum of the individual parts does not add up to a completely satisfying whole & some leaps in logic have to be glossed over.Jason Momoa does physically look the part & handles the action scenes well - this is a difficult role to take on so you can accept that his acting ability is not at an Oscar winning level & his charisma hovers around acceptable - at least the producers did not go route one & go for John Cena or The Rock to take on the lead (which would have been the modern day equivalent of casting Arnie!) - the supporting cast was also generally quite good although the sorceress & "blood line female" were a little weaker than I would have liked.Overall as a fan of the character I found the film enjoyable enough you just feel that the makers had the opportunity and component parts in place to make something more memorable here - still a decent effort with it's heart (& heritage) in the right place - it's just hard to understand why the writers could not have used more material & direct inspiration from Howard - the real spirit & identity of the character was present in REH's mind & everything else is diluted to a greater or lesser extent by subsequent writers - 3.5 stars.

Not really my favoured genre ( I've never seen the original of this ) but I seem to have watched quite a few during lockdown. This is better than a lot particularly in regard to production values. There IS too much repetitive action and nothing much in the way of character development. However the two leads do what they are there for in that they look good and mumble their (probably)rather fatuous lines. The villains played by Stephen Lang and Rose McGowan are much more fun.