Trailer Tuesday: Conan the Barbarian

-

I should be ecstatic that we're finally getting a Conan reboot. As fun as the Arnie movies were, they didn't exactly explore the full scope and potential of Robert E. Howard's beloved pulp literature creation. The time is ripe to transport cinemagoers to the dark and brutal Hyborian Age, when sword and sorcery were both legitimate paths to power.

Conan the Barbarian, however, isn't quite what I was expecting. Although the trailer above makes me feel a lot happier about the film - particularly its ability to look and feel like an action-fantasy epic - there's still no denying the B-grade nature of it all.


Marcus Nispel, the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th remakes, is the man behind the camera for Conan. Stargate: Atlantis star Jason Momoa has bulked up to play the title character, Avatar's big bad Stephen Lang is the villain while G.I. Joe's Scarlett, Rachel Nichols is Conan's love interest. If that isn't enough B-grade king (and Hellboy himself) Ron Perlman is Conan's blacksmith father, and Rose McGowan, an almost-Red Sonja (a Conan spin-off, out of interest), plays the villain's right-hand woman - a powerful witch. Like I said, rather short on A-grade, big name talent behind and in front of the camera.

Anyway, just to clarify, Conan the Barbarian 2011 is not a remake of the 1982 film, despite the same title. In the reboot, Conan seeks vengeance after his father and Cimmerian tribe is slaughtered by power-hungry warlord Khalar Zym (Lang). In his quest for vengeance, Conan crosses paths with pirates, crosses swords with monstrous opponents and, of course, beds multiple buxom wenches. Things come to a head though when the Queen of Acheron is captured by Zym, who plans to make himself ruler of the kingdom.


I'm prepared to give Conan the Barbarian a chance. Despite the fact that the first official images have been terrible, and Conan looks like a sneering, dirty douchebag in every single one of them, the trailer has done a lot to redeem the production in my mind... even if some others are griping that the film looks little better than The Scorpion King, Kull the Conqueror, or TV's Hercules for that matter.

R-rated Conan the Barbarian will be screening in 3D, having undergone a post-filming conversion *yawn*. The film is releasing in North America on 19 August. It is unclear when the film will open in South Africa, although I'm sure we can expect it sometime between August and March 2012.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov...
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th...
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding...
Read more