I've been waiting for this movie because I used to love watching the series of Conan : The Adventurer on TV3 when I was a lot younger... Sitting on a couch with my family, I watched Conan slayed countless monsters and witches... I was a bit skeptical though when I learned that Jason Mamoa is the one who's gonna play the latest Conan because I always thought that Conan should be a bit fairer or Caucasian like (thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ralf Möller for putting that image into my mind)... However, Mamoa slashed down all my early judgments by delivering a brilliant performance as the new Cimmerian warrior!
THE STORY
Born on a battlefield, Conan (Jason Mamoa) possessed natural talents in slaying... Conan's father and fellow Cimmerians were killed by Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) in his quest of finding the last shard of an ancient magical mask that could grant great power to the one who wears it... Being the sole survivor of the tragedy that had fallen onto Cimmerian tribe, Conan spent his years searching for Zym to seek revenge...
THE AWESOMENESS
Jason Mamoa
Like I said before, Jason Mamoa is awesome as Conan... He wielded his sword well and acted like a true barbarian... He even looked like one... Look at those strong arms and firm abs... In order to look more bad-ass, they gave him quite a number of scars... I had to admit that he's pretty hot...
I was so glad that they made his costume a bit more decent than the previous Conans... Instead of just briefs, the latest Conan wore a skirt like outfit which is far better...
The Action
This movie is indeed action packed... After all, this is a movie about a barbarian... You surely can expect a lot of slaying and sword wielding action... What I loved the most about this movie is the creativity of the director, Marcus Nispel, in showing so many ways a person can die during battle...
My favorite scene was when Conan and Tamara (Rachel Nichols) battled the sand warriors... It was delightful to see those sandmen coming out from the ground as if the sands were liquid...
Rachel Nichols and Stephen Lang did fairly good in terms of delivering some stunts... but of course, non could match Jason Mamoa's level of bad-assness...
The Origin
Most movies introduced their main casts in a lame or rushed kinda way... However, in this movie, the director was wise enough to spend an appropriate amount of time to tell the tale of how Conan was born and what made him a powerful barbarian... I loved the part when they showed Conan as a kid and the bond between him and his father... It sort of made the tragic massacre more heartfelt...
Marique
One more thing that I want to highlight is Rose McGowan played Marique like a true psycho... She was creepy... In other words, her acting worked... The girl beside me in the cinema was so spooked, she covered her eyes every time Marique showed her claws... Not to mention, her hairdo made her look like a gothic ancient Chinese kung fu master...
THE NOT-SO-AWESOMENESS
Camera Work
I dislike shaky camera... Too much of it will make me dizzy... When the camera is shaken too much, it would be hard for the audience to focus on the action... The scene that was ruined the most by poor camera work was the part when Conan battled the squid monster - the dweller... I didn't enjoy that scene a bit... Making it worse was the pointless close ups... Luckily, the director didn't make the same mistake with most of the action scenes..
The Ending
Instead of being slashed into half, Khalar Zym died in a lame kind of way... However, I loved how Conan and him played touche with each other...
I personally think that the producers deliberately chose that kind of ending for Zym because they wanted to make a sequel... After all, Zym was wearing the mask... Most probably he would survive the fall... (Trying not to give any spoiler here)
THE VERDICT
The best Conan movie so far... I think what made it better than the ones before is the fact that it didn't go off too far from reality... There were no over usage of sorcery and magic thus making it quite believable or logical... Jason Mamoa was the best thing in this movie... He's perfect as Conan... I also enjoyed most of the action scenes very much...
3.5 out of 5 stars...
I wanna add something here... After the movie ended, one of the audience behind me said, "This movie is so lame..."... Therefore, I guessed that this movie is not for everyone to like... I like this movie so much most probably because I love this type of action movies... Like I always tell my students - different people have different thoughts, judgment and ways of thinking...
The girl beside me enjoyed it a lot though...
One more thing - the mask of skull looked more like an octopus mask...
1 comments
Man-crush alert! I know he's one of mine now, ever since Game of Thrones came out.
ReplyDeleteWord has it that Momoa himself had already penned a sequel, provided that if this one does well enough, a sequel should be in the works soon!