Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian - a one dimensional movie in 3D

24 August 2011

Gerard Wood

Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian doesn’t really justify the effort of a review, and the less time I spend thinking about it, the happier I’ll be. But I was outspoken in support of Nispel when he was appointed to the helm of this reboot, so it’s only reasonable that I make some atonement for that error of judgement with a word of warning in case you’re tempted to go see it.

A movie as mindlessly brutal as this is asking for brutal honesty, so here goes: Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian is a mind-numbingly awful film and an insult to the memory of Conan creator Robert E. Howard. I have no doubt there is an audience for this movie, but I seriously doubt any of them are fans of Robert E. Howard’s writing or, for that matter, anyone capable of reading. Apart from the opening scenes which deal with Conan’s “birth on a battlefield” – interpreted quite literally with Conan’s father (Ron Perlman) cutting the babe from his mother’s womb in the midst of battle - and Conan’s childhood as a precocious killer, there’s precious little of Robert E. Howard’s influence to be found in the narrative or even the character of Conan. Which is disappointing and inexcusable given the richness of Howard’s creation and the wealth of ideas the author left behind.

Is it unreasonable to be disappointed by a mindless, blood-soaked movie about a barbarian hero given birth in pulp fiction? I don’t believe so. While I do not think that Robert E. Howard’s writing constitutes great literature, I do believe his writing has moments of brilliance and his creations are original and remarkable and hugely influential on modern fantasy, and it deserves to be handled with intelligence and respect. Both of which are absent from Nispel's movie.

When Millennium Films appointed Nispel to the helm of their Conan reboot, I was quite excited by the prospect. Back then I wrote that what this blood soaked tale was screaming out for was an epic make-over and with his earlier movie Pathfinder I felt that Nispel proved he was worthy to take up the reins of Howard’s epic fantasy. Pathfinder is a seriously underrated movie. Flawed and simplistic though it is, there is considerable mythic depth to it: its simplicity is that of myth, which is to say that it has hidden depths. If you’ve seen Pathfinder it’s not hard to believe Nispel’s claim that Conan was a job he had dreamed about since childhood: the influence of Robert E. Howard, and the visceral artwork of iconic illustrator Frank Frazetta are clear to see in the director's filmic vision. I’d go so far as to say that Pathfinder demonstrates a far better feel for Howard's fantasy than even John Milius’s otherwise excellent 1982 Conan starring Arnie.

While that might be true, Milius’s Conan outshines Nispel’s in almost every conceivable way (except perhaps for the special effects). The reboot is not entirely without merit however. The action and combat are decent without pushing the envelope (which some might consider a failure given the focus on action and combat); and the cinematography, art and production design are at times quite spectacular. But none of this is sufficient to overcome the movie’s Achilles’ Heal, the screenplay. Between them, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood fail to do more than string a series of violent moments together. The opening scenes dealing with Conan’s childhood were actually quite promising: born of battle young Conan (played by a very capable Leo Howard) is a formidable and brutal killer from an early age, but purpose in life arrives when Khalar Zym, a warlord with aspirations of becoming a god (Stephen Lang), leads his rampaging army across the barbarian lands in search of the last piece of an ancient mask that endows the wearer with formidable powers (although in the end, it proves to be useless as tits on a bull). Zym destroys Conan’s village, kills Conan’s father and sets the boy on a path to vengeance. There’s little more of substance to the story than that, just a lot of blood and guts.

It’s not the brutality of Nispel’s Conan I object to  – Pathfinder is at least as brutal – but unlike Pathfinder or the even more brutal Valhalla Rising, Conan is brutal and ugly without any redeeming purpose such as a meaningful narrative or characters with more than one dimension. The story is uninteresting and entirely unoriginal, even for a reboot, and for that reason the orgy of violence is almost pornographic.

Jason Momoa as Conan, Ron Perlman as Corin and Stephen Lang as Khalar Zym do the best they can with what they’ve got, but in the end the script is a lead weight about their necks and while the movie might be showing in 3D, none of the characters has more than one dimension.

Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian should be avoided at all costs.

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