The idea of a Conan the Barbarian reboot isn’t necessarily a bad one. The original, despite its classic status, is lots of fun but not quite a great film. It’s an epic hack-n-slash adventure filled with bloody battles, magical villains, and mountainous cleavage. The character of Conan and the tales of Robert E. Howard offer serious franchise potential (Conan the Destroyer notwithstanding) so a remake to gauge interest seems like a no-brainer.
That said, the behind the scenes “talent” assembled for the new film doesn’t exactly inspire hope that they’ll deliver a big, beefy, entertaining hit. Director Marcus Nispel’s highest profile film until now was the recent Friday the 13th remake which was… not too bad all things considered. But the screenwriters’ past credits don’t fare even that well. Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer previously brought us Sahara, A Sound Of Thunder, and the just opened (and just closed) Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night…
But hey, it’s a Conan movie so how important can the script be anyway? And even though Jason Momoa appears to have none of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charisma the movie looks to feature everything else we’d expect. Burly hero swinging his sword willy-nilly through human flesh! Ugly bad guys and magical creatures! A high-foreheaded Rose McGowan! Rachel Nichols finally looking hot for once! Ron Perlman and Stephen Lang!
Conan the Barbarian hits theaters August 19th. Check out the trailer below.
What do you think?