Conan the Barbarian

Overpriced Bulgarian DVD crap without a soul, imagination or originality. It is worse than any other very bad period B-movie and no better than the worst instalment of Mortal Kombat series. It’s as though its creator hates movies and his own audience and wants to show them as much. The only emotions the film will bring to you are boredom, annoyance and aversion to all of the self-serving violence. And the only thing this movie proves (after Pathfinder) is that Marcus Nispel is currently the worst Hollywood director in the movie business. Only one thing could’ve turned out worse – the masks and costumes, for which I’m giving this one star. (30.08.2011)

Conan the Barbarian? Don't let anyone laugh at you. More like Cohen the Barbarian for Cosmopolitan readers in an amateurish performance by the director, who should only participate in A-filmmaking as a passive observer. By far the worst film of the year - buy Solomon Kane instead, which is light-years more exciting, darker and more brutal, and not these races in casting raspberries on the ground. (18.08.2011)

A Conan that’s a little better than Conan, but at the same time a Conan considerably worse than Conan. A C-movie to the core, full of confused editing and disjointed shots, non-actors and zero story... But luckily it doesn’t attempt to be anything more and there’s more fighting than talking here, and at a solid pace. If this had had the same energy as the magnificent introduction from his childhood all the time, I would have been absolutely content. But then it’s just too... Well, just neither (laughably) bad nor (really) good. And the result is more an average imitation of Werewolf (and dozens of other movies; what Nispel liked in some movie, he put into this) than a continuator of the original Conans. (18.08.2011)

One of those few movies where it’s clear that it would be a low-quality experience already from the trailer, which is silly but perhaps more entertaining than the entire film. The only things that stand out are the action scene with the little boy in the forest, right at the beginning, the decent production design, and that's about it. The music is all sorts of random – the composer must have thought that putting fast strings together would mean monumental, epic, and action-packed music; unfortunately, he got a bit confused. The actors are nothing special either. It shows pure commercialism and no passion or love for classics. And that's what buries the whole project. (27.11.2011)

I was brought up on Howard’s Conan books and so I’m disappointed (again!) that the movie focuses just on the main hero and the world where the story takes place. It would have been so easy for the creators to borrow one of the countless already written stories, but they didn’t (ok, there’s a mention of the Elephant Tower, but nothing else) and all they did was stuff a couple of action scenes (miserably filmed by Nispel) and a couple of dialogs (that sort of make sense) into the clichéd template. The only positive thing here are the actors, headed by the superb Momoo who at last is a honest to goodness Conan who looks like he has stepped out of the cover of one of the books in my bookcase. Both Lang and McGowan made respectable villains. The third star is for solid production design and special effects, and the blood spurting from cleaved heads also made me happy. I really hope there will be a sequel, but please with a different screenwriter (one good one would be better than three cooks) and with a brand new, better director. (20.08.2011)