Dear 'Conan The Barbarian',
I don't even know where to begin. Well how about the beginning? I loved how you open the story with Morgan Freeman narrating. I loved how in the very next scene, a woman was giving birth to Conan....in the middle of a battle field. I loved how after he is born, his father raises him up in a 'Roots' like manner (Behold, the only thing greater than yourself), while his buddies were dying all around him. I also love that in the span of 20 minutes or so after that, I saw about a hundred people die and maybe 40 different pairs of breasesests. That's one hell of a death to tit ratio; 'Rambo' (even 'Rambo 4') ain't got **** on that. I like how after those 20 minutes you bring back Morgan Freeman to explain absolutely nothing critical to the story. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but it sounded like the truth.
From that point on though, your movie suuuuuuuucks. You were all over the place. A strange place to be in considering this is a revenge story line. From having Tibetan monks protect a harem of white American girls whose pimp is an Italian dude who looks like a sheep, to having Arabic-ish names for cities but no one there speaks arabic, or having a lesser character act so terribly that his accent changes when he yells or having him say **** that only Mr. T would say ("Calm down FOOLS!"), but probably most egregiously is having a black dude be captain of a giant ship -- I was willing to suspend my disbelief until then. In the words of Rocco from 'Boondock Saints', "This mix and match **** gots to go." At one point you had Conan sneak into a fortress only to find out that the girl and guy he's looking for left. No seriously, they got to the main hall and were like "Where the **** is everyone?" only to look out a window and see a caravan of people leaving. Sloppy storytelling.
This wouldn't have mattered so much if your main character was likeable. I thought he did a fantastic job in 'Game of Thrones' but here...man...at best he's hilarious and at worst he's ridiculous; never is he serious. It's pretty messed up when the child actor playing the same part is better than you. Halfway through the movie I thought to myself, "This would be a lot better if Morgan Freeman narrated his lines instead." Like when he was about to say something clever or say goodbye to a friend, Morgan Freeman's voice would appear and be like "And then he said 'I want your head' to his enemy....maybe...it was never written down or anything, but he probably said it."
When he let his sword do the talking, your film flowed much better. But enough about him, what the hell did you do to Rachel Nichols? In the words of the reporter from South Park "She's pretty hot, Tom." But you did something to make her look shitty. Every scene it seemed like someone just got done raping her, but in a bad way. You know what I mean.
Here's a promotional photo of her from her last movie, 'G.I. Joe':
Hot, right? Now here's a promotional photo from 'Conan':
Now you may be saying to yourself....But Stogi, that's a shitty picture of her. Regardless of that fact, that's how she looks throughout the movie; old and witch like. At least her body didn't suffer from the terrible make-up decisions.
But most disappointing of all is your climax. You don't seem to have one. It's like a mixture of when the bad guy gets 'The Mask' and when Dr. Jones has to save his chick from 'The Temple of Doom', but nowhere near as exciting, hilarious or intense. I had so many questions during those last few vital scenes. For instance, where did the bad dude's army go? At one point they where there giving high-fives, like "Yeah...Finally, we're about to see this bitch get cut up." Then Conan walked RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THEM and the next moment they were gone. Also, as soon as the villain got the mask and powered it up, what powers did he possess? There was so much hype about him becoming a God or Shadow Lord or something cool but the only real tangible power I saw (or should I say heard) was his ability to make his voice louder. What kind of **** is that? You're telling me this guy went around the world collecting pieces to form a mask, killing thousands on the way, then spent 20 years finding a pure breed chick in order to make his voice louder. Lame. So so so very lame. Then after he dies from falling into the deepest trench on earth I guess, Conan just takes the bitch he just saved back to her crib and then dips. What is he, bashful? He already beat on a rock in a dark, dank cave...that doesn't sound like bashfulness to me.
The only thing that kept me watching the entire movie was the halfway decent set pieces of violence and the hopes that Morgan Freeman would return to make a terrible movie better. Hell, I was hoping it would skip to the future and Morgan Freeman turned out to be the black dude commanding the ship. How great that would have been....
Never Watching You Again,
Stogi