Brutally bloody barbaric action, those moments are the ones that make this movie entertaining.
Conan The Barbarian is an action movie set thousands of years ago and that’s basically it as far as what really matters within the story. There is some random guy who wants some helmet to bring back his wife who will then make him a God. Conan is just pissed cause this guy killed his dad. Anyway it’s a pretty bland story, which makes it difficult to sit through the film. There is never a true sense of adventure.
This film is almost 2 hours long. Within that time you’re not going to get character development that makes you care for Conan or any one else. It does have balls to the wall action. Every other scene has some battle going on. Each one has its own differences. Sometimes Conan is fighting an octopus, other times he’s fighting sand people. Most action moments contain a special gem shot where something truly cool happens. Usually this contains a ridiculously over the top death. These special moments are the reason to continue to watch the film.
The beginning of the film is generally speaking the best out of the entire movie. Seeing young Conan with his father and the balance of both story and action works well. After Conan grows up you lose track of his personality. He just becomes a one-sided brutal warrior. If the movie cut out some action sequences, was trimmed to an hour and thirty minutes, and had more character driven moments, then it would have been a pretty good movie. Also simply inserting Basil Poledouris’s score would have made the movie way better.
The Bluray does contain several special features that focus on the history of Conan as well as its creator Robert E. Howard. They do a good job of explaining their story. The behind the scenes materials that specifically talk about the Conan The Barbarian film focus on the fighting within the movie. Those videos aren’t that detailed, but you’ll get some quick glances on what it took to make the fight scenes come to life.
The action and look of Conan The Barbarian is high quality, but there’s simply too much random action within the film that causes the movie to feel dumb. Conan The Barbarian is a rental for fans of the action genre.
