TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Broadcom agrees to buy VMware for $61-billion

      26 May 2022

      The cost for South Africa to quit its coal habit: R4-trillion – study

      26 May 2022

      Apple is feeling the smartphone industry chill

      26 May 2022

      Nvidia was to be the next trillion-dollar tech stock – no more

      26 May 2022

      Reunert would consider buying EOH: ‘We’d be foolish not to’

      25 May 2022
    • World

      Musk pledges more equity to fund Twitter deal

      26 May 2022

      Sony looks beyond the console to PC and mobile gaming

      26 May 2022

      Andreessen Horowitz raises world’s largest crypto fund

      26 May 2022

      Central African Republic’s crypto hub plan has World Bank vexed

      25 May 2022

      Big Tech’s latest dive snuffs out hopes the worst is over

      25 May 2022
    • In-depth

      Bernie Fanaroff – the scientist who put African astronomy on the map

      23 May 2022

      Chip giant ASML places big bets on a tiny future

      20 May 2022

      Elon Musk is becoming like Henry Ford – and that’s not a good thing

      17 May 2022

      Stablecoins wend wobbly way into the unknown

      17 May 2022

      The standard model of particle physics may be broken

      11 May 2022
    • Podcasts

      Spectrum auction opens up big growth opportunities – Ruckus Networks

      26 May 2022

      Everything PC S01E03 – ‘The story of Intel – part 1’

      25 May 2022

      The rewarding and lucrative careers to be had in infosec

      23 May 2022

      Dean Broadley on why product design at Yoco is an evolving art

      18 May 2022

      Everything PC S01E02 – ‘AMD: Ryzen from the dead – part 2’

      17 May 2022
    • Opinion

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022

      Cash is still king … but not for much longer

      31 March 2022

      Icasa on the role of TV white spaces and dynamic spectrum access

      31 March 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»Top»Conan the Borebarian

    Conan the Borebarian

    Top By Editor26 August 2011
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    By Crom! Jason Momoa as Conan the Barbarian in the film of the same name really has the gods on his side. Whenever he seems to be in mortal peril, you can be sure that some lazy deus ex machina — a ship waiting at the bottom of the right cliff, a convenient rock fall — will save his neck.

    Then again, perhaps the gods owe him a favour or two for his rough childhood. In the opening scene of the film, Conan’s dad (played by Ron Perlman) cuts the lad out of his dying mother’s belly on the battlefield. A few years later, young Conan watches as a warlord shatters the bucolic peace of his village and slaughters his entire tribe of noble savages.

    Conan swears revenge and eventually ends up serving as the protector of a young woman of a pure and ancient lineage whose blood said warlord is after. The villain needs the girl’s vital fluids to activate a relic that will resurrect his necromancer wife and make him all-powerful. Why is open to question since he already seems to lord over the mythical Hyborian Age that the film is set in. Conan, of course, is having none of that.

    Conan the Barbarian is the latest movie starring the Cimmerian warrior created by Robert E Howard in 1932. The swords ‘n sorcery character is perhaps best known in mainstream culture through the pair of Arnold Schwarzenegger films made in the early 1980s. Though those films are a little ropey, they still offer some camp entertainment value.

    Conan ... the gods must be lazy (click image to enlarge)

    The same can’t be said for Conan the Barbarian, which is a yawn from beginning to end. Under its slick special effects and art direction, Conan is near-incoherent, and for a film with so much violence, surprisingly bloodless. For the all the money that was obviously thrown at this production, there clearly wasn’t budget for a scriptwriter that understood plot and dialogue.

    There are few moments of wonder or suspense in a film that lurches drunkenly between its brutal action scenes. There are some odd breaks in continuity that make the film feel choppy, though it’s unclear whether this is the fault of the editor or the scriptwriter.

    The comparison that seems unavoidable is with HBO’s dark fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, which also features Momoa as a nomadic barbarian. Game of Thrones has high stakes and memorable antiheroes, but Conan trades in sloppy contrivances and dull stock characters.

    Where every limp lopped, tongue ripped out and head severed makes you wince in Game of Thrones, none of the violence in Conan seems to matter. After all, you don’t really care about the characters, and if you did you never really feel like they are in any danger.

    The acting is also barely adequate. Many Conan fans were outraged when Baywatch himbo Momoa was chosen to swing the barbarian’s sword, though he has since scored some geek points with his role as the Genghis Khan-like Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones.

    Though Momoa was a good fit with a role that asked that he grunted only a few words of English, he is not quite up the task of carrying an entire film on his shoulders, as ripped and muscled as they are. His Conan is a preening, photogenic pretty boy who projects little of the strength of will, ruthlessness of action and quickness of mind that define Howard’s character.

    Conan the Barbarian trailer (via YouTube):

    Stephen Lang as warlord Khalar Zym and sexpot Rose McGowan as his sorceress daughter hiss malevolently and utter darkly, but they’re about as imposing as the villains in a Janice Honeyman pantomime. Rachel Nichols is insipidly virginal as the nun that Conan takes under his protection.

    The best scenes in the film go to Perlman — the gristly, stone-faced Hellboy actor — who works wonders with the pseudo-poetic dialogue he has to work with. There is a dangerous presence and a steely intelligence in Perlman as Corin that is missing from Momoa’s performance.

    Conan’s special effects are decent, with some nifty fight scenes and tasteful use of CGI to evoke the film’s fantasy world. Sadly, the visuals are marred by a poor and unnecessary 3D conversion. When will filmmakers learn that fast, blurry action scenes and night-time sequences don’t go well with 3D? Since you’ll struggle to find a 2D print in a cinema, you may want to wait for the DVD release instead.  — Lance Harris, TechCentral

    • Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
    • Follow us on Twitter or on Facebook
    Conan the Barbarian Lance Harris
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleApp World leads Android, Apple markets in SA
    Next Article Vodacom app store: the lowdown

    Related Posts

    TechCentral’s top 10 movies of 2019

    31 December 2019

    TechCentral’s top 10 games of 2019

    23 December 2019

    The best movies of 2018

    31 December 2018
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    BT, MTN Business form strategic alliance in Africa

    26 May 2022

    Think like a start-up: how to build a competitive digital enterprise

    26 May 2022

    Breaking barriers: new payment solution opens up the online market

    26 May 2022
    Opinion

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

    19 April 2022

    How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

    8 April 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.