CONAN THE BARBARIAN

Conan The Barbarian is the 2011 reboot of the 1982 camp "classic" starring the one & only Arnold Schwarzenegger that made Ah-nold a bonafide movie star. The reboot stars lesser-known actor Jason Momoa in the title role. The film starts with Conan's mother giving birth during battle--or "blood-born" as it's referred to in the film--and she dies after giving birth. Ron Perlman (of Hellboy fame) plays Conan's father who gets murdered by this evil sorcerer who's intent on releasing an ancient evil into the world--with the aid of his creepy-ass daughter--while Conan watches helplessly kind of like in the original film. Also like in the original film, Conan grows up seeking revenge against said evil sorcerer and his creepy-ass daughter--played by Rose McGowan (of Charmed fame)--for the death of his father. Along the way, Conan meets up with this sexy monk chick--played by Rachel Nichols (of G.I. Joe fame)--whose "pure" blood the evil sorcerer needs to release said ancient evil onto the world (or some such thing!). Anyway, just like the original, the rebooted Conan is a movie you don't really watch for the "sensible" plot or for the grand acting but rather for all the sword fighting and whatnot, and, just like in the original, there's NO shortage of THAT! But, the REAL question remains, does the reboot compare to the original? The answer is, quite simply, NO. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here to say that the rebooted Conan will NEVER be considered a "classic" like the original. However, that's NOT to say that the rebooted Conan ISN'T "entertaining" in its OWN right, which it is, especially for fans of the sword & sorcery-type genre (like, of course, yours truly!). And, though Jason Momoa does try his darnedest to fill Ah-nold's muscle-bound shoes in this flick, no one--and I mean NO ONE--can replace Arnold as Conan. I mean, it was like Arnold was actually born to play this role (and, let's face it, he was!). One other thing I'd like to say about this flick is that I actually kind of found Rose McGowan kind of--dare I say it!--sexy in this flick. Granted, it was a creepy type of sexy, but I still found her rather sexy nonetheless (which, truth be told, is usually the type of chick I go for!)! A sidenote: At the time of this writing, Arnold Schwarzenegger is reportedly reprising his role in the "sequel" to his 1982 camp classic Conan The Barbarian (and not the follow-up the even more campy Conan The Destroyer). Frankly, in my oh-so-humble opinion, I'm not sure how they're going to pull this off since Ah-nold does look at least a tad bit older and something tells me he doesn't have quite the physique he had back then, but we'll see. We'll see!