Thursday, 1 December 2011

Angry Movie Lurker Honest Review 59: Conan the Barbarian 2011 (3 STARS)

...and a short review as someone at work has gone sick and I'm being forced to actually work!


Ok, it's not the original and has very little to do with it but it's an enjoyable romp with our new Conan (Jason Momoa from Stargate Atlantis and Game of Thrones) playing the Cimmerian with a penchant for aggression and hacking limbs off and his quest to revenge himself on Khalar Sym (Stephen Lang) for the death of his father and destruction of his village. Khalar wants to resurrect his dead wife with the help of his sorceress daughter, he needs to find the pieces of a mask and the blood of true blood who falls into Conan's hands.

The action is plentiful, good set pieces with a lot of fighting on the screen, great and bizarre costumes, weird bad guys and weirder dialogue but he's no Arnold but it's not that much of a problem, it's a popcorn movie that won't have you bothered about a sequel.

39 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to hear that you have to work today Angry. The movies not a bad one. I watched it on instant streaming and enjoyed it. And for us girls, Conan is eyecandy.

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  2. I watched the other day too, i thought it was rubbish. Its hard not to compare it to the original. I agree, you cant beat Arnie!

    Steve

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  3. EXACTLY!!! Nevertheless, with Conan it behaves like with Nightmare on Elm Street... as well as ONLY Robert Englund can explain Freddy Krueger and ONLY Arnold can play Conan !!! All other is a nonsense!

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  4. The adverts and trailers made it look not too bad but they can do that with anything.

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  5. Fair review, Fran, but I still think I'll wait until it's shown on TV before I watch it.

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  6. Yeah it's true, he's not Arnie...
    I also missed some of the humour from the old movies, like punching dromedaries in the face for example. But all in all the new one is quite worth watching.

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  7. Thanks for that mate, I'll stick to Arnie.

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  8. I was a big fan of Momoa in Game of Thrones, and I do plan on checking this out at some point. Glad to hear it is not too bad.

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  9. Thank Crom he's no Arnie! Those 80s films did a lot to muddle the character of Conan as evidenced by the comments here that he's somehow definitive. Momoa is saddled with a average film, and a little too much homage to the older movies, but he's closer to the original literary character.

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  10. Forced to work.....my arse, you've been playin' facebook scrabble with me all morning!!!

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  11. LOL at Ray above :)
    SOund like a great film for a Sunday evening, Lurk!

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  12. I had a lot of reservations about this flick, but I found it to be surprisingly enjoyable :)

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  13. I am going to pass on this one...

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  14. Well I'm glad at least one person besides me liked this movie. On one group I read people were complaining about too much sex and violence. Had they ever read Howard, or a comic book, or seen a Frazetta painting? I am pretty much in step with Trey. I love the Arnold movie, I have it and Conan the Destroyer. I saw both of those and Red Sonya in the theater when they came out. I personally feel that we look at the Arnold corpus with rose colored glasses. The first movie was decent but took a lot of liberties, the second movie was pure crap and didn't even have the saving grace of nudity because they were trying for the PG rating. I would watch the new movie for the Cimmerian coming of age ceremony, bad ass!!

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  15. What?! Arrrrrghhhnold wasn't in this remake? I am disappointed.

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  16. I've put up a new post since this morning. I think it may be time for me to hang up my blogging shoes. Best wishes Anne

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  17. Looks like my kind of movie. I would like it I guess and thanks for review

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  18. I may have to watch this some day. It can't be worse than Destroyer, right?

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  19. I skipped this one. Looked pretty lousy to me.

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  20. now how would u compare it to the originals with ahnold, get doawwnn. better or same or worst?

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  21. Thanks for the review. Ditto what Banacek said.

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  22. @Bart: Hard to say...not as dated I suppose.

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  23. I know you gave it a fair non-Ahhhnold shake. Not sure I can. haha

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  24. I won a couple of tickets to this movie, so I thankfully just blew an evening, which was bad enough. Bad 3D and no Arnold. What can i say?
    /Joakim

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  25. arnie is the one and only true barbarian. the movie was ok tho

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  26. Even though everyone's favourite Austrian actor may have hung up his massive sword there is still room for a successor. Looking forward to catching up with this one.

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  27. if he's gonna be topless like that for the whole movie, then i'm definitely going.

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  28. It's so much closer to the characters and principles of the written work than the Arnold movies ever hoped to be. This Conan actually looks like Conan, actually acts like Conan, and actually, amazingly, comes off like a real action hero, unlike Arnold.

    "What's a Conan movie without Arnold???"

    "Understandable."

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  29. i dunno if i can get behind this guy for conan. still havent seen it

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  30. Just got this on DVD and am looking forward to watching it.

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  31. I might be tempted to watch this on cable when it's out.

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  32. I haven't even watched the one with Arnold in it, let alone this one. Should I watch the old one first?

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  33. Really have a problem seeing anyone else other then Arnie as Conan and is probably why I haven't watched this. However, when it comes on the premium channels I'll watch it then.

    Christopher

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  34. Watched it last night and didn't even get half way through. I already got my fix of crappy barbarian cinema with my years of Hercules and Xena back in the day.

    Just bad,
    Brian

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  35. It were crap, after Ron Pearlman died the sucking began, big disappointment

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  36. I haven't seen this one, but I remember bits of the original from years ago. I have been wanting to watch it lately actually. Good review, I might try to watch this one if I get the chance. :)

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