Review: 'Conan: The Barbarian' is just another dumb action movie.

Film: Conan: The Barbarian
Director:  Marcus Nispel
Cast: Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang,Rose McGowan, Ron Pearlman
Rating:  **

The Cimmerians is a race who unabashedly upholds a tradition of valiant savagery in the battlefield, dwells idyllically in an age ‘between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas’ , in the continent of Hyboria.

This is until their village is razed to the ground by an evil warlord Khalar Zym (Lang) who is in search of a shard of a skull mask belonging to an almost extinguished race of necromancers that grants its wielders mastery of the world or something like that.

Young Conan, already a warrior of great prowess, is forced into causing his father Corin’s (Pearlman with a Zeus-like beard) death (the unfortunate lad must hold onto the searing chain that suspends a vat of boiling metal over his father’s head) by Zym and his then-budding witch daughter Marique (McGowan) who, besides being bizarrely attired, wears Freddy Krueger-like razors (this is all we know about her though she might have a bit of an Electra Complex.)

Naturally, Conan, now full grown and without a home, must stalk the realms of Hyboria and exact his vengeance on the ruthless Zym, destroying everything and everyone coming between him and the vanquisher of his people.

The warlord, however, has since moved onto bigger things. In a bid to bring about the resurrection of his consort, he seeks the blood of a last descendent of the race that crafted the mask but she, a nun called Tamara (Nichols) is claimed by Conan as his property.

Conan, while superficially capturing Robert E Howard's vision with its teeming post-cataclysm civilizations and magic-wielding heathenry slightly better than the earlier films, could have used some of the source material’s depth.

Conan’s philosophy -- self-determinism -- manifests itself basely on the big screen with the celluloid version of the character only dashing forth to split skulls and spill oceans of blood. The tawny Momoa, while he's stomping around with the grace of a professional wrestler lacks the craftiness and wit that exist behind the protagonist's hulking exterior.

Conan’s trademark disdain of civilisation and his quotable broodings on mankind never quite make it in the film’s dialogue which just lacks soul.

Momoa, however, for all his lack of subtleties is better than the silent, stone-like Schwarzenegger in John Milius’s 1982 film of the same name.

Khalar Zym, though a nuanced villain (well, his bloodthirsty actions have a motive)  doesn’t match up to James Earl Jone’s take on the demonic Thulsa Doom, the villain who perpetuated the atrocities against Conan’s clan in the first film.

Nichols and McGowan seem to take their respective damsel-in-distress/ wicked witch roles respectively in their stride while Pearlman, as always, leaves nothing to be desired.

One wishes that the film didn’t delve so much into Conan’s origin while employing a linearity that could only breed clichés. With a wealth of exciting stories to fall back on such as the sensational Red Nails, the exciting Beyond the Black River and the downright weird The Tower of the Elephant, the film could have really gone beyond the usual hack and slash routine while at the same time providing viewers with a glimpse of Conan’s past by means of flashbacks.

But no, Nispel would rather rehash Oliver Stone’s script than reboot the story completely and have Conan arbitrarily slicing his way through magical sand warriors. (At least the sand warriors didn’t create quite as much as a mess as the countless flesh and blood baddies caught on the wrong end of Conan’s sword.)

Conan: The Barbarian, despite its sword and sorcery embellishments is just another vehicle for a just another dumb action movie.

Expect a lot of brutality and decapitations to a pulse-pounding score but none of the imagination, bleakness and excitement of Howard’s works that since 1932 have been begging for a decent cinematic adaptation. After a spate of sub par horror remakes, Nispel fouled up something good all over again.