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Of course, we see Conan’s parents killed. The big difference between here and the original is the fact that we watch it play out over the course of the better part of a half an hour. The big problem with this is that while it gives our hero suitable back story for a tidy little revenge story, it robs him of his mysterious background. So much of what made the character appealing in the original stories was that sense of mystery. He’d come out of the wilderness and managed to become a thief, a pirate, a king and so on. We don’t really know what made him what he is… and we don’t care. It doesn’t matter.

With the revenge story solidly rendered, the central portion of the film - that which draws on the appeal of the overall plot structure of the original film - is established. In the process of reaching the film’s second half hour, we see a very dark cinematography that is, in places, exquisitely beautiful. This draws on some of what made the old Conan comic books work so well, particularly the larger black and white magazines drenched in printer’s ink with some particularly dark and gruesome images.

With Jason Momoa n the title role, we have an intelligent-looking Conan. The long, dark hair and piercing eyes do give the feeling of something savage and predatory. The problem is that the story doesn’t do much with that energy. And particularly as the film goes through a long, drawn-out intro detailing the big events in his childhood, we know what those eyes have seen. In fact, we have a remarkably vivid impression of it. The audience is burdened with the job of trying to connect the character and his current motivations with the events leading to the death of his parents in the first half hour or so of the film. We’re given this task to accomplish without really having that much to draw us in beyond competently rendered action and some decently composed and edited shots.

There’s more. There’s some magic here. And thanks to modern CGI special effect, it looks a lot more impressive than, say, scars suddenly appearing on a villain as mirrors are shattered or the raising and lowering of a wall found in the second film. (Honestly, it hardly seems like they tried with Conan The Destroyer.) In a more impressively-framed drama, this could’ve been staged as a really nice spectacle, but it’s used as kind of a cheap throwaway gag here to add atmosphere without adding any real significance. It’s a competently-rendered film, but hardly the kind of cinematic genius befitting the character who ushered in a whole new era of fantasy fiction.

The Verdict

There’s no mistaking that Robert E. Howard’s character was a commercial creation, appearing in popular pulp fiction of the early ‘30s, but there was a kind of fresh fusion between old legends and new perspectives on fiction in an emerging market. The character took hold in the imaginations of people just beginning to understand the meaning of being human in an increasingly technological 20th century - an era where everybody probably felt a little bit primitive.

As the character evolved through the work of subsequent authors, he changed. By the time a young bodybuilder became synonymous with the character, he’d lost much of the edge he had in those 1930s stories. We find ourselves in an era where the multiplex bears some passing resemblance to an early 20th century newsstand with countless disposable dreams to sink into. Pay some money to the person behind the counter and go somewhere else for a little while before returning to your life. Robert E. Howard’s original stories had a resonance to them that could breeze to life through pulp paper in a wholly refreshing way. None of the three films that have attempted to commit the character to the screen have managed the commercial alchemy needed to capture the same kind of energy found in those original stories.

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