Conan The Barbarian

Rating:*

Circa 2011,this is how Conan the Barbarian is born: In the middle of battle,his mother is attacked and her stomach cut open. His father drags the sword out of her,cuts her more and lifts his baby out,holding it aloft to the skies,umbilical cord flapping.

Conan,the one born in battle,of course is slaying men and carrying back their heads as trophy before he has sprung a moustache. The father isn’t concerned at the sheer brute force and anger of his young son but the strength of the sword that Conan should bear. It is in the middle of forging one such sword that he gives Conan a brief lecture about “temperance”,about “fire and ice playing an equally crucial role”,about “Cimmerians” like they themselves not fearing death but not rushing headlong into it either.

That’s before he is scalded to death by a villain who leaves as many headless bodies in his wake. With father dead,temperance is forgotten,both by Conan and the film. Conan,now grown into an eight-pack looker (Momoa),is traversing lands with names as varied as Messantia,Zingaran and Shaipur in search of the villain who killed his father,whose name he discovers is Khalar Zym (Lang). In Shaipur,before the film is too long gone for her to matter,Conan finds a “pure blood” monk Tamara (Nichols),who Zym is after to make himself invincible.

Tamara,the one of some Asian descent,falls for Conan once he has saved her and the film pauses its killings long enough for them to find a cave for some private time – “I live,I love,I slay,I am content” – he tells her. Tamara,the monk,also learns to wield a sword and kill with it,much to Conan’s delight.

The barbarian that he is,Conan has no eyes for the other woman in this film,Zym’s daughter Marique (McGown),who can sniff out pure bloods and secret masks and has metal talons in place of one hand,helping her slash and kill. Competing against her own dead mother who was a sorceress,the lonely Marique even makes a play for her own dad. The latter chucks her aside,and continues the war. The film doesn’t consider the matter again.

Arnold Schwarzenegger who played Conan in the 1982 film made a career out of such roles. Momoa has the muscle and the curls and even a smile but really who needs another Schwarzenegger?

shalini.langer@expressindia.com