After reading so much Conan, I wanted to give Conan the Barbarian (2011) a fair shake. See if it was even tolerable.
I knew I'd have to cut it a lot of slack as 1) I hate almost all CGI, and 2) it looked shit. Surprisingly though, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. As a Conan fan it certainly didn't suck you in like the comics do. There was an obvious degree of surface entertainment. It never dug as deep as a comic. But it wasn't total bollocks.
The Morgan Freeman narration in the beginning is pitiful. It sounds like he totally phoned that one in. No enthusiasm for the subject. Bah.
They make a couple references to stories like Born on the Battlefield and the Tower of the Elephant. There's a good amount of decapitations and and boobs, but not really enough of either. Still, they tried. My biggest gripe is trying to find an actor who sounds like how I expect Conan to sound. I think this dude manages to get one line out in the whole film that I thought was a good example of how Conan would speak. He seemed a little too whispery overall...not enough baritone. I dunno.
I tried watching the original Conan the Barbarian a few months ago and I only got 10 minutes into it and turned it off. So if that's any indication, then this one was pretty good.
I'd only suggest die-hard Conan fans watch this. And cut it some slack.
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