Movie's like Conan the Barbarian are not about characters, relationships, or even a decent plot. These movies instead focus on how many dying people and how much blood can be fit into every shot. This is not always a bad thing, provided you have the right mindset and aren't expecting any grand storyline.
Contrary to most of the other reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (Follow this link for those reviews http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/conan_the_barbarian_2011/), the plot and characters do not always make the movie. Despite what my review looks like, I enjoyed the movie. Sure the action and dialogue and characters were very weak (very very very weak truly), but there is just something enjoyable about watching red splash across the screen as armies fall to a lone man.
Conan is essentially a spaghetti western, with swords instead of guns.
After the death of his father, Conan spends the rest of the movie hunting down and killing all the outlaws that were involved in his father's death. Just what the theaters need, another Fist Full of Dollars...
Simple as the plot is, the director felt the need to include a montage at the beginning of the movie about an ancient empire that the barbarians overthrew. Why this is even a part of the movie is beyond me. The villain is seeking the ancient magic contained within the ruler's crown, but when he enters the movie he completes the crown within the first half hour. Great. Now what?
Had the director used this as the basis for Conan's quest, the movie would have been infinitely better. But he didn't. The ENTIRE opening of the movie takes a back seat to Conan's revenge.
Worse even than the more interesting side plot that was completely overlooked, is the character development, or lack thereof. After the first half hour of the movie, all covering Conan's father's death, the screen fades to black and the Narrator tells us that Conan traveled the world and became a big hero. Wonderful, but why didn't you montage together some of these theatrics and give us a little bit more, such as to why the adult Conan has a ship full of pirates as his friends.
Further on in the movie, Conan meets a young woman who is the last of the bloodline of the ancient emperors. They fight, he binds her, then they fall in love, and then they get freaky. What the hell? Why all of a sudden does she love him when she spent most of the time on screen arguing with each other?
I honestly can't say I was happy to spend the money to see it in theaters, yet I can't honestly say I won't go buy it when it's released on DVD. I enjoy a movie with good acting, dialogue, and most importantly a good story. Conan was none of the above, yet there's just something appealing about a macho man killing anything that crosses his path that makes for a fun movie.
