"What Is Best In Life?" Conan the Barbarian 2011

The metal soundtrack I hope isn't in the movie (i hope it has a proper score that at least tries to do justice to something standing in Basil's shadow), but I don't mind it for the trailer. Metal and fantasy imagery are heavily associated with each other, so as a commercial it makes some sense (even though it comes across more like a youtube remix fan trailer).

 

So my wife is gonna have a "girls' night out" to see this...

 

It's decent. It's not great, unfortunately, but it is serviceable. Momoa is good as the character and all the various elements are achieved well. It's got a larger scale than the Arnold movie and a more developed storyline (though, particularly towards the end, it occasionally goes to far and has characters talk about things that should have been left to the viewer to behold and recognize) and way more action (which is generally pretty good).

The score is not a metal soundtrack (though there are some thumping metal-like crashes at times), but while it does aim to be big, it's not very memorable (and, even when it manages to build on "being big" in the movie, the way the film is structured, it goes from "really big" to near silent in the next scene, so it's difficult for the film to build any momentum, musically).

I think what they went for with the music was a more eastern/asian vibe to the music (possibly to match Momoa's samurai stanced take on the character), which would explain why it feels so different.

I'm definitely tempted to see if I can re-edit the movie with the Basil score once this one is on DVD. I think it'll improve it tremendously.

Villain wise, Lang is good, but even when he gets the evil mask powered up, he doesn't actually do anything with it, so it's kind of a dead macguffin and McGowan is quite good as the witch daughter.

The movie was LOUD too. Especially first noticeable during the boulder attack on the slave camp early on.

The only part of the movie that falls short of the rest is after the sex scene, when the girl wanders off into the woods instead of back to the ship, just so she can be captured as the plot demands.

I think, ultimately, in their attempt to make it more epic and more action-packed, the faster pace makes things feel a tad rushed- not cripplingly so, but still.

Also, to it's credit, the movie does not hold back- even I was giving a few "ooh!"s during some the violent attacks. Definitely earned it's r-rating.

 

As I?ve posted elsewhere, it helps to think of ?Momoa Conan? not as a remake of ?Ah-nuld Conan,? but that they?re both adaptations of the same source material.

I enjoyed both, and my hat goes off to whoever did the fight choreography. In particular, Momoa?s crouched ?ready stance? was impressive. I would say though, that both Momoa and Arnold used a lot of ?samurai-influenced? moves and stances, though Momoa was definitely faster and more graceful.

A recommendation: catch it in 2-D if you can. The 3D effects were pretty lame-to-nonexistent.

 

In interviews Momoa has said he intentionally used a lot of samurai stances, as well as studied the motion of large cats for his movement and silverback gorillas for his stationary/planning moments.

 

Nice!

Although I stand by my point that both iterations used a lot of samurai influence. Both Conans and Valeria (and incidentally, Qui-Gon Jinn as well) used hasso-no-kamae as their ready stance, although Momoa's crouching version looked totally badass. "Arnold Conan" also used a lot of strikes from the jodan position as well as a kind of iajutsu looking two handed reverse-grip draw and strike.

Subotai also used a samurai style of sheathing his weapon.

 

Heh, I named the Jedi Master of a SW fan film I attempted to produce about 11 years ago Jodan Hasso, after those forms (the lower ranked Jedi characters also used names based on lower stances as well).

 

[image=http://cdn2.holytaco.com/wp-content/uploads/images/2009/revenge-of-the-nerds_0.jpg]
NERRRRRRRDS!!!









*by that, I mean both of us

 

Yeah, it cost $90 million and only grossed 48 worldwide, so there definitely will not be a sequel- which is a shame, for all the flaws of the movie, Momoa really could have done something with that role.