Conan the Barbarian

Movie: Conan the Barbarian

Genre: adventure

Synopsis: This is a not a remake of Arnold’s classic Conan movies.  It is a fresh treatment of Conan.  The movie opens with a young Conan (Leo Howard), son of his clan’s chief (Ron Perlman).  When an army overruns his village, Conan manages to escape.  Fast forward to an adult Conan (Jason Momoa) who is determined to avenge the death of his father.  The head of the bad guys is Khalar Zym (Stephen Land) who has a really nasty witch-daughter Marique (Rose McGowan). They in turn are trying to capture Tamara (Rachel Nichols), the last of a royal line.  They want to use her blood in a ritual to give Khalar the power to rule the world . . .  but only if Conan does not stop them.

My two cents: I’m a big Conan fan, having read about 20 of the books.  I was not a huge fan of the two Conan movies from the 80’s.   I thought this more than those films.  The scene where the young Conan takes on five enemies at once was great fun – kudos to the actor (Leo Howard) playing him.  Ron Perlman was at the top of his game as Conan’s grizzled warrior of a father.  Rachel Nichols also excelled.  She initially looked like a defenseless princess  . .  . but turned out to be ready to fight whenever necessary.  The makeup on Rose McGowan was amazing.  I knew it was Rose McGowan, but only once in the entire movie was there a scene where I could see the Rose McGowan I know from “Charmed”.  And her character was over-the-top (but in a good way) evil.
I give this movie a big thumbs up.

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