Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Director: Marcus Nispel

Cast: Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan

Have I Seen It Before?: There is literally nothing in this film that has not been seen before.

Did I like it?: It’s probably unfair to expect a good Conan movie, but Milius ruined that for everyone who followed. Even a hypothetical late-stage Arnold King Conan would probably be something of a letdown, after one was subjected to Conan the Destroyer (1984). I’ve been intermittently reading the Robert E. Howard canon of stories since recently re-watching Conan the Barbarian (1982) and from a laundry list of muddled, droning sword and sorcery tales, films like this one are what Conan adaptations probably ought to be. At least this film sports a solid R rating, and doesn’t continue the trend of making the stories suitable for children, starting with Destroyer. Movie series like Robocop can’t seem to shake of the need to smooth rough edges to a dull, PG-13 shine.

That preceding paragraph may sound like some sort of absolution for the film, but it isn’t. This film tries for nothing, nearly to the point where I began to wonder if the production was an ashcan attempt by some half-baked production company to keep the rights to the character. Momoa has proven himself since to be a charismatic movie star, and he is probably closer casting to the original character than even Schwarzenegger was, but he barely appears in half the movie here—the first third of the movie consumed by a needless prologue that the original Milius film dispensed with in a few minutes. Where the formation of Conan’s sword makes a visceral experience out of the opening titles in the original, here it is barely-rendered and boring CGI, tossed off because it is a list of things a producer wanted included in the movie, not something that serves the story.

Scenes that hardly needed to be shot in front of a green screen are, giving the film an antiseptic feeling, where a Conan film should be anything but antiseptic. It should be positively septic, bordering on gangrenous. Oh, and it was converted to 3D at the last minute, which was probably useless beyond the tanked opening weekend, and makes it pretty much in line with every film released during the era*.

Eventually, I was consumed by noticing things that couldn’t possibly work, even in the context of the film. The battlefield c-section that brought Conan into the world? Dubious. Conan freeing a village of slaves, and then carrying off one of their women? Counterintuitive. The henchman who had his nose cut off by Conan, and the rails about the injury while sounding like nothing might be altering his speech? Likely the only thing I will remember about the film.

*The new trend in film releasing in the 2020s? Skipping the theater altogether.

Aquaman (2018)

Director: James Wan

Cast: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman

Have I Seen it Before: It’s hard to see an action movie these days—with their wall-to-wall CGI, bombastic film scores, and framing of shots like their in a gyroscope—and not feel like you’ve been watching the movie many times. Does that begin to answer the question? Probably not. No, I haven’t seen it. At this writing it is a brand new movie. There. Now I’ve answered it.

Did I Like It: I didn’t hate it, which, as it turns out, still manages to bring up the average of post-Nolan DC movies.

I’m not entirely sure why Jason Momoa has spent most of his acting career up until this point being the strong, silent type. I mean, I guess I get the strong part. The man is built like a Joel Schumacher fever dream, but here he gets to let his leading man flag fly, and acquits himself well. He’s often funny, usually charming, and never seems lost in the course of starring in his own movie. That’s not an easy task, especially for someone who has been largely taciturn for much of his acting career.

The movie surrounding him has an odd tone, though. With it’s synthesizer-heavy score, reverse-engineered pseudo-Indiana Jones plot, and the mere presence of Dolph Lundgren* makes this film so thoroughly entrenched in an aesthetic pulled from the 1980s*. With no further context, there’s very little outside of the CGI to indicate that this film was truly made in the second decade fo the 21st century. It’s kind of a refreshing choice, at times. It actually sends my imagination into overdrive about what the film would be like had it been made thirty-plus years earlier. Lundgren would still be in it, although in either the role of Arthur Curry (Momoa) or Orm/Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson, showing up once again to cash some DC money and hopefully not be noticed in the process), while somebody like Sylvester Stallone would be the other role. The imaginary film might have been directed by Stallone as well. The increase in montages for this film would be negligible, if any.

And that might have made it a better movie. The ultimately slapdash fashion in which the film is put together makes me question whether this retro sensibility was either intentional, accidental, or the ongoing trend of studios insisting that all tentpole films be as much like the Guardians of the Galaxy films as possible. Also, the film is an absolute exposition fest. You know it’s going to be a doozy when the film injects a voice over in the first few minutes, but it only gets worse from there. While someone may have decided that this much world building is necessary for a first film set in a world of which audiences likely have little-to-no knowledge, the proceedings are far too weighted down. While this isn’t the annoyingly self-serious Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) or the muddled Justice League (2017), it doesn’t quite reach the magnificence of Wonder Woman (2017) or any of the largely superior Marvel films. Keep trying DC, you might yet get it down one of these days.

*Who, by the way, between this and Creed II, is having a renaissance the likes of which we haven’t seen since the one two punch of Masters of the Universe (1987) and The Punisher (1989).