I've Made A Huge Mistake: Conan the Barbarian

So I originally intended to do a review of both Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan and the new Conan. But then I realized that Netflix does not have the original Conan... only Conan the Destroyer. And I don't start with sequels, that's just stupid. So I am just doing the new Conan...

With the first scene... I realized, I don't have alcohol for this...

I am just baffled by the amount of this incredibly simple plot I did not understand. It was just amazing how complicated but just overall stupidly simple this plot was.

I mean, I guess I knew what I was getting into when I first started this movie. I mean the movie is called Conan The Barbarian. Does that scream really good movie? Does a remake of a shitty Arnold Schwarzenegger movie say, This is a good movie? We should remake this?

So Conan the Barbarian is the story of a guy from a village, I guess of Barbarians. He's the son of Ron Perlman and his name is Conan. Well Conan grows up and basically becomes a sociopathic killer. Seriously, they're doing some weird ritual with eggs and they get attacked by other barbarians for no reason whatsoever. So Conan goes and just demolishes these guys and brings back their heads to his father. Great start for a hero we're suppose to root for. Well soon... other barbarians? come and attack the village. It's a very predictable story, bad barbarians kill Conan's father, he swears revenge.

Well all the while Morgan Freeman narrates (yes... Morgan Freeman is pseudo in this movie) that there's this mask that was fragmented into pieces and if the pieces are put together someone can be super powerful with this mask. So Stephen Lang wants to get this mask so he leads the bad barbarians around killing other barbarians, like Ron Perlman for their pieces. But even though the mask is complete, he can't use it for another 10 years or so... for some reason... something about a pureblood woman I guess.

So Conan grows up he's tracking Stephen Lang down, Stephen Lang is tracking this girl down (played by Rachel Nichols) and of course Conan finds the girl first. You know where this is going and if you don't you haven't played a video game or seen an action movie.

This movie was just so stupid. It was predictable, it was sappy, it felt like all the actors were just dressing up and LARPing the entire time.

I think this movie was made by a person who has played too many video games. Now I have seen movies that are pretty much just video games and they're done well. Perfect example: Taken.

 Now Taken is by no means a phenomenal movie. However it does what it wants to do absolutely perfectly.

Think about the plot of Taken. It's a guy going to Paris in order to find his daughter. What's the conflict? A bunch of bad guys. So what does he do? He kills them and gets his daughter back. There's not really a twist in Taken, its just Liam Neeson kicking ass and getting to his objective.

Taken does a really good job at sending a guy through a world of conflict and getting him to the end. Its a very straightforward movie and while it may not be an Oscar winning movie, it entertained the hell out of me.

But the reason it was so entertaining was because Liam Neeson's character was relatable. While the movie didn't have that many twists and  an incredibly complex story, it did have a compelling protagonist. Along with being a badass, you wanted him to succeed, you wanted him to find his daughter.

With Conan, I just didn't care. Conan wasn't relatable, he wasn't compelling, he wasn't even that interesting. He was just the least evil guy with a sword.

Most of the time I analyze each character and their contribution to the film. I will try with this movie but its going to be hard.

I'll start with Jason Momoa as Conan. Now Momoa is not a stranger to the Barbarian role. He was phenomenal as Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones but this role is nothing like that.

You'd think that with a title like Conan the Barbarian he'd be more Barbarian like. But instead Momoa was just a guy with his shirt off. He didn't strike me as a barbarian, just a psychopath.

And honestly, neither strike me as a character I would root for.

I mentioned this already but Conan's an asshole. He's not a good guy. Sure he'll fight people that are worse than him and he is the "hero" of the movie, but sometimes he's just as bad as the guys he's fighting. Unlike Liam Neeson's character in Taken who I was introduced to as a good guy with a bit of a dark streak within him, the first real scene with Conan he dismembers the heads of his enemies and brings them to his father. If I didn't know he was going to be the "protagonist" I would have thought that Conan was the bad guy in this film.

Does that mean Momoa was bad... ehhh, no.

I still haven't seen enough to show me that Momoa is a good actor but this movie I will chalk a lot of it up to bad writing. Are there bad actors in this movie? Oh yes there are. But the script is just awful.

The female lead... was hot.

Her name is Rachel Nichols and the only thing I've seen her in besides this movie is the 2009 Star Trek as the Green Alien Kirk bangs then dies in the following battle.

And unfortunately, Nichols didn't do much in this movie. I don't care if this is a reboot of a movie from the 70's and a time when women couldn't do anything, we live in the 21st century.

I'm usually not a huge feminist but the estrogen in my body hurt when I saw the uselessness of this character.

This one again I will chalk up to bad script but I will be surprised if Nichols has an incredibly successful career ahead of her.

Stephen Lang... I don't even wanna look at him. I want to like him so much and I do but then I see shit like this...

Now I think what happened with this movie for me was that I am angry that this was such an awful movie, not because I'm necessarily mad at the movie, but more that I'm mad at myself for spending two hours of my life watching this movie. I think this is a common feeling among movie viewers and we often blame the movie or movie theater. In short, it is nobodys fault but my own that I wasted time on this movie

But there's another reason I guess I watched this movie.

Momoa is now in talks for a part in the Man of Steel sequel.

Its not really clear what part he's going to be but people are speculating he's going to be Martian Manhunter, Lobo, even Doomsday was thrown out there.

Now on face value, not knowing who he's going to be. I'm psyched. Momoa looks like a villain but that doesn't mean he couldn't play a good guy. But the more and more I think about it, the more and more I'm iffy on this decision.

First off, the pile of shit I just watched was just sad. And while I did chalk it up to script issues, I'm worried I might be wrong about that and Snyder just threw in a large guy to play a large role. Because there's no reason why Momoa won't be given a large part regardless of whether or not its a good guy or a bad guy.

The second part of that is the concerns I have over Man of Steel 2 already. I'm not worried that its going to be overcrowded, I get that movies have a lot of characters in them. But I've said this before, Zack Snyder needs to focus on Batman and Superman in this movie. You've heard my rants on Wonder Woman but I'm still pretty psyched. I'm just worried they're going to cast Momoa as another member of the Justice League, like Martian Manhunter or hell I'd be cool with him being Aquaman. But if that's his character, I'm a little more concerned about the film. Cause while a movie can't be overcrowded, other characters can take away from the real purpose of developing the two main ones if its too convoluted and Snyder doesn't care. Now from everything I've heard, Snyder does care and I still have no doubts about that.

But like I said, Momoa looks more like a solid villain for a Man of Steel sequel. But is it the villain we want for Man of Steel 2. Maybe I'm just took hung up on seeing Lex Luthor and a more subtle but commanding villain.

Granted I don't know the background of Lobo but from what I've played of him in InJustice he's menacing but not a lead villain. But maybe they can do it.

Perhaps I'm just caught up with an image of Momoa and Lobo I can't picture in Man of Steel, however maybe that's why I'm not writing this movie.

I went kind of off on a rant totally unrelated to Conan The Barbarian but that movie was just...

You know what, I'm done.

So, what do you think of Conan the Barbarian? Have you seen it?

I'm so sick of thinking about this movie that I am going to give you a video totally unrelated but it made me laugh so here you go.