CONAN THE BARBARIAN (2011)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, sociological*

The 2011 CONAN THE BARBARIAN was one of the few high-profile fantasy-films that I never bothered to see, even on DVD, and I was enough of a fantasy fan that I saw THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER in a theater. It wasn't that I'd heard bad things about Jason Momoa's debut as Robert E. Howard's famed barbarian. I actually didn't hear anything very good or very bad about the film, and that led me to put off seeing the thing for about twelve years.

Going in, I was reasonably sure I wasn't going to get a high-mythicity film like 1982's Schwarzenegger outing, but I thought it possible that this BARBARIAN might be at least an adequate formula flick. I wasn't familiar with Momoa back in 2011, but he showed some strong charisma as Aquaman, while German director Marcus Nispel had helmed 2009's PATHFINDER, which I mildly enjoyed (but have not yet reviewed). The film's prologue alludes to Acheron, an "empire of evil" that predated Conan's era, and this element is clearly derived from Howard's only Conan-novel, THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON, which was also slightly plundered for content in 1997's KULL THE CONQUEROR. Could it be that the new Conan raconteurs planned to take on that formidable, eminently cinematic story?

Ah, no, the threat of an evil empire, reborn through fell magic, was not a consideration of the script's three writers, whose list of credits are not overly impressive. Acheron, we are told, was vanquished by the ancestors of Conan's Cimmerian tribe when they got hold of a magical mask created by the Acheron wizards. After the mask is sundered, all of Acheron is banished to another plane of existence. However, for some reason the Cimmerians won't or can't just smash the mask into atoms, so they break it into three sections and try to keep them separated.

Conan's a young man trying to win the approval of his stern father (Ron Perlman) when the sorcerer Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) and his daughter Marique (Rose McGowan) invade the Cimmerian village with their troops. The villains acquire a piece of the magical mask and leave the village in ruins, with both of Conan's parents dead. Conan swears revenge but many years pass before he gains any info on the malefactors, during which time he becomes a thief and pirate.

Not only does BARBARIAN rehearse the hoary plot of a hero chasing down villains who are chasing pieces of a secret weapon-- which was old in the days of the sound serials-- we learn that Khalar Zym needs another element for his empire-reviving ritual: a pure-blood descendant of the mages of Acheron. (Her sacrifice is not only going to revive Acheron but will for some reason also resuscitate Zym's dead wife.) This proves to be a hot-and-feisty priestess named Tamara (Rachel Nichols), and since Conan finds Tamara first, she becomes his main weapon in thwarting the plans of the foul father-and-daughter. Like any good leading lady, Tamara spits fire at the barbarian's high-handed tactics but secretly warms at the sight of his form. Though Conan has an assortment of forgettable allies, he and Tamara eventually team up for a big climactic fight against the evildoers, so that Conan can both gain vengeance and save the world.

BARBARIAN's budget was about $90 million, and that means that the action set-pieces all look pretty good. The fights are the film's best element, in particular a big brawl between Tamara and Marique. By contrast Conan slices and dices a lot of henchmen but he never has a mighty-thewed opponent worthy of his sword, as Arnold did in the 1982 effort. Everything else about the film-- plot, dialogue, chemistry between the leads-- is completely routine. The film's dramatic arcs are mediocre at best, from Conan's desire to prove himself to his father (ended when the father dies) to Marique's vaguely incestuous desire to keep her mother from being reborn (which also goes nowhere). The script makes only desultory efforts to capture the grim, no-frills outlook of Howard's Conan, but the writers might have been better off not doing anything that would invite comparisons with the 1982 movie. Still, the imperfect attempts to conjure up a Cimmerian culture for the 21st century are the only reason I assign the film a fair mythicity.