CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D IS A STUPID POO-POO PANTS OF A MOVIE!

CONAN THE BARBARIAN 3D is not a remake of the original CONAN film.  CONAN 3D is a comic book movie.  With that said I would also like to say that this is a terrible comic book movie that rips off PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, PRINCE OF PERSIA, LORD OF THE RINGS,  THE NEW CLASH OF THE TITANS and some other crap I suppose.  CONAN 3D tries to be epic with elaborate sets and well detailed costumes but everything comes across as flat and uninteresting.  The story is sloppy and rushed.  The characters are small and insignificant taking a back seat to all the violence and buckets of blood.  The movie borrows liberally from other films big time pretending we the audience have never been to a Hollywood blockbuster before.  We are not that stupid......Well I am.  I bought this movie on blu-ray.  Whoops.

CONAN 3D starts off with this LORD OF THE RINGS story about a powerful wizard that had a crown made of the skulls of kings.  Then all these barbarians fought back and destroyed the crown and divided the pieces throughout the world.  So just replace the word "ring" with the word "crown".  One crown to rule them all blah-blah-crap.  Then we have a scene where Conan is born on the battlefield.  It is an embarrassing scene that tries to stress how badass Conan is.  Of course being born in battle means he will be the ultimate badass just like Leatherface from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING will be a chainsaw maniac obsessed with cutting things up because he was born in a slaughter house.  Bravo.  What brilliant imagination.  (hurl)  At this point in the movie I couldn't help but think I was watching something directed by Uwe Boll.  It just has that awkward misses the point feel to it.  The acting is bad. The story is lifted straight off of better movies.  You can tell that the film is hiding the weak script behind the the curtains of blood that flows about from the never ending supply of bad guys.  Conan's father is killed by Stephen Lang who seeks the pieces of the crown.  Then Conan spends his life living like a pirate until he decides to go and kill the dude who killed his father.  Oh, and there is a love story about a virgin who has the power in her blood to resurrect Stephen Lang's dead wife.  Or something like that.

Overall the film is a rush job with no time spent to develop the characters.  Conan the character is a made for t.v. personality not straying too far from a Duncan McCleod blandness.  Sure Conan looks big and mean and does the twirly sword nerdery that the nerds love but when he speaks he comes off more like a football linebacker who somehow went back in time to the dark ages and not being smart enough to do anything else is forced to live his life like a barbarian which suits him just fine.  This Conan dumb jock but good with the ladies personality doesn't fit into the dark violent world the movie takes place in.  He is almost too politically correct.  He frees a bunch of slaves saying "No man should live in chains" but why would he think that.  He is a barbarian/pirate type person.  Last time I checked they didn't give a crapola about anybody.  Why would Conan?  Oh, I guess because the writers said so.  The original Conan didn't speak much but we learn a lot about his character based on his actions.  Often the secondary characters would explain Conan's actions because Conan would not.  That fits his character.  There was thought put into the original Conan.  Not every action has to be fully explained by the main character. Its called good writing. 

CONAN 3D has a lot of scenes all of which fly by so fast that you never really know what is going on.  They almost all end with some bad guys showing up and getting stabbed, sliced and made not alive anymore.  The end fight with Stephen Lang is particularly epic in it's stupidity.  Conan and he are doing a high wire act standing on a wheel balancing over deep drop into lava or something.  They fight for like twenty minutes through Stephen's evil temple.  Suddenly for no reason the temple starts to collapse.  I don't think the movie explains why the temple decides to fall apart.  I think the writer thought that the temple falling on top of them would make the action more exciting.  Spoiler alert!  It doesn't.  Not every final battle has to take place in a place where a bunch of crazy crap happening all over the place.

It is sad at this day and age with the tools we have to make the greatest looking movies ever yet we still have junk like CONAN 3D.  It looks like a big Hollywood movie with a bunch of B-Movie actors.  What it doesn't look like is the story of a young boy who grows up in a violent world as a barbarian to one day become king.  The worst thing about this movie is how boring it was.  Not once did I find myself getting involved with the story.  It was just a bunch of stuff that happened and who cared.  The music wasn't even memorable.  Remember the original Conan?  The large, loud and triumphant orchestra boomed during the battles and set the epic mood of the film.  It was music that stayed with you and brought an adrenaline rush to the movie.  Its a smarter more detailed film than people give it credit for.  Heck, even the nudity in CONAN 3D is boring.  It's there but you have to look really hard to see it.  You shouldn't have to do that.

Maybe if you are like fifteen and haven't watched a lot of movies and you think the STAR WARS PREQUELS are better than the originals then you might actually like CONAN 3D.  Its got blood and swords and armor and medieval times stuff and big special effects.  It is all familiar and it shouldn't challenge your young mushy minds.  If you like boring and stupid and HIGHLANDER movies then I recommend.  Otherwise stick to the original.


Jason