The sound of an uninhibited, testosterone-laced battle cry at the start of a movie should herald the beginning of a rip-roaring tale of swords and sorcery. In the case of Conan the Barbarian that rallying sound may as well be a yawn.

With darkness in the land of Hyborea, it is upon the barbarians of the Cimmerian tribe to prevent the total destruction of the world. Led by the wise chieftain Corin (Ron Perlman), the barbarians manage to preserve the peace after many bloody years on the battlefield. Born amid all the bloodshed is his son, Conan (Leo Howard), whom prophecy foretells is bound for greatness. As Conan receives his training in the ways of the warrior, his world is forever changed as tyrant Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) destroys his whole village in an effort to take over the planet. As he grows to be a man (Jason Momoa), Conan searches for Zym, with the singular thought of avenging his father and stopping the madman’s plot for dominance.

After appearing in Stargate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones, Momoa must be pretty accustomed to flexing his biceps and having people cower in fear. However, Conan, a character forged of molten steel and powerful sinew, comes off as incredibly wooden, rather than sharp metal, thanks to the actor’s dull performance. Lang is slightly more bearable as evil adversary Zym, sporting an even more pronounced facial scar than the one he wore in Avatar. But, killing off indigenous blue aliens is almost tame compared to the warlord’s plans to use a mystical mask made from skulls to invoke the spirit of his even wickeder deceased wife.

Rose McGowan is sinfully good as Zym’s daughter, a witch who looks like the Mona Lisa and carries weaponry akin to Freddy Krueger’s finger blades, though her incestuous attitude toward dear old dad is more than a little off-putting, even for a gal who dabbles in black magic. Still, at least she’s more interesting than the good girl of the story, a virginal ingénue named Tamara (Rachel Nichols), whose blood is needed to jump-start the ritual — but, not if our hero has anything to say about it…

When you’re following in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, you don’t have to concern yourself too much with looking like a Rhodes Scholar, but somehow Momoa and everyone else onscreen looks even dumber than you’d expect. Overdone set designs and costuming are offset slightly by some respectable makeup, especially for the womenfolk. It would appear that the entire purpose for this re-imagining of Robert E. Howard’s classic fantasy character is to milk the 3-D effects for all they’re worth. Does anybody really want to see the tip of a sword nearly kill Conan while he’s still in the womb? As bad as that introduction to the story is, it only gets worse, with terrible battle scenes that are actually less violent than you’d hope. If you’re going to be tasteless, you should at least take it to the hilt.

Among the few positives of Conan the Barbarian is an early snippet of narration by Morgan Freeman, obviously done in the hopes of drawing in more mature viewers. But, as this is yet another example of money-grubbing through remaking movies that hardly need to be revised, you can almost hear the check being made out during Freeman’s dialogue.

Rating: 1.5 out of 4 stars

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