Movie Review: Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian (2011) 

Directed by Marcus Nispel 

Written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Sean Hood 

Starring Jason Mamoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Leo Howard, Ron Perlman

Release Date August 19th, 2011

Published August 19th, 2011 

In all honesty, I expected to hate Conan the Barbarian. Critics aren’t supposed to be prejudiced against a movie but director Marcus Nispel doesn’t have a great track record. Nispel’s Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes are exercises in brutality and I’m not talking about what he puts his characters through, but what he puts the audience through with his ham-fisted, overly stylized, blood and guts approach that treats characters as bags of meat that exist only to be split open like piñatas.

Don’t misunderstand, there are plenty of meat-bags in Conan the Barbarian waiting to be split open like so many pigs at a slaughterhouse, but somehow, one of the writers actually snuck a modicum of character development into the film and the yeoman work of the casting director found a few shockingly talented actors who miraculously manage to act amidst Nispel’s fetishistic bloodlust.

Jason Momoa plays Conan the Barbarian, a man born as a warrior; literally. He was born in the middle of a battle, cut from his dying mother’s womb amidst a clash of swords and the separating of limbs from bodies. Raised by his barbarian daddy, expertly played by that charming lunkhead Ron Perlman, Conan develops into a warrior at a very young age.

14 year old Leo Howard plays young Conan and the kid is a star. It was Howard as young Conan exhibiting badass skill in taking down a small horde of bad guys and carrying their severed heads back to his father as a trophy that won me over. When young Conan is forced to witness an atrocity against his family at the hands of the ruthless, power hungry Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), Howard brings fierce intensity to Conan rather than the simple tears and fears of a child.

Jumping ahead a decade or so we find Conan as a warrior pirate sailing the scummy sea sides in search of any sign of Khalar Zym and the chance to avenge his family. When his chance arrives, following a siege by Zym and his nutty sorceress daughter, Marique (Rose McGowan), at a formerly peaceful mountainside monastery, Conan doesn’t let the opportunity pass, even if it means using an innocent beauty, Tamara (Rachel Nichols) as bait.

Jason Momoa, I’m told, is quite compelling on HBO’s Game of Thrones where his Khal Drogo is a silent yet imposing killer. In Conan the Barbarian however, Jason Momoa is shown up big time by the young Conan the Barbarian, Leo Howard. Howard is the star, Momoa merely carries on the compelling character that the kid creates. Momoa’s leaden line delivery nearly undoes the hard work Leo Howard put into making Conan so compelling. Thankfully, what Momoa failed at as an actor he makes up for as a physical presence and sword swinging apparatus.

I could sit here and hammer Conan the Barbarian for its blatant misogyny and massive lapses in logic but that would ignore the fact that I knew what Conan the Barbarian was before I saw it. I went into Conan the Barbarian aware that the film was going to treat women as sex objects and damsels in distress and I knew not to expect a heavy dose of brains other than those that spilled out of the cracked skulls of many CGI extras.

It seems unsportsmanlike to call out Conan the Barbarian for living down to expectations. And what would be more unsportsmanlike would be to deny that once you put aside the preconceived notions of Conan the Barbarian, the film is surprisingly compelling, even gripping in its blood and guts way.

Is Conan the Barbarian a little daffy at times? Absolutely, but it is also surprisingly involving and exciting. Do I welcome a Conan the Barbarian sequel? No, I don’t need to see this character ever again but for a one off, blood and guts, 3D epic, Conan the Barbarian is shockingly fun and surprisingly worth the 3D ticket price.

Movie Review Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch (2011) 

Directed by Dominic Sena 

Written by Bragi F. Schut

Starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy, Stephen Graham, Christopher Lee

Release Date January 7th, 2011 

Published January 7th, 2011 

Nicolas Cage has made some seriously awful movies, like Fire Birds, Bangkok Dangerous or Knowing. Despite the quality of his films though, Nicholas Cage has never been boring, until now. Season of the Witch is Nicolas Cage being boring. As a noble, god fearing Knight on a quest to save a village from an allegedly plague inducing witch, Nicolas Cage offers a stalwart hero so tediously heroic that nothing stands out about him.

Behman (Cage) and his loyal pal Felson (Ron Perlman, Hellboy) have been fighting on behalf of the church in the crusades for more than a decade when suddenly killing the innocent loses its taste. Abandoning their duty, the two set off for freedom but are waylaid at a village overcome by the plague. Found guilty of desertion, Behman and Felson are offered a choice; death by hanging or a Knightly quest. Not hard to guess that choice.

The quest has the Knights, along with a priest, a con man, a teenager and a widower, transporting ‘The Girl’ (Claire Foy), who is suspected of being a Witch, to a monastery where she is to be executed. Behman however, pledges that ‘The Girl’ will not be harmed unless she actually is a Witch, something that the priest, the Widower and the Con Man, simply cannot abide. In short order they will try to kill the Witch and face a dastardly fate. But, is it Witchcraft or worse?

The idea of Nicolas Cage, underneath yet another one of his famously odd hairdos, playing a 13th century Knight battling a Witch and a corrupt Church would seem to have potential for some classic Nicolas Cage weirdness yet somehow it never comes. Sure, Cage and Ron Perlman‘s casting alone, along with Dominic Sena‘s ludicrous modern action beats against a 13th Century background, are odd in their own right but Cage plays Behman with such stalwart, heroic intensity that he seems stunningly normal under the circumstances.

Cage plays Behman just as any other actor without Cage’s flair might have played him. Viggo Mortenson or Keanu Reeves could have played Behman and given just the same stolid yet gallant performance. Where is the weirdness? Where is that extra something behind the eye that makes Nicholas Cage unique? It’s shocking and disappointing to watch Nicolas Cage play a hero whose eyes aren’t bugged out and ready to leap from his fiery skull and instead are sleepily focused and determined.

If Season of the Witch wanted to be just another action movie the makers could have hired any other actor. They hired Nicolas Cage to bring the weird. It’s fair, in fact, to wonder if director Dominic Sena, who watched Cage bring the weird to his car junkie action flick Gone in Sixty Seconds, was also waiting for his star to emerge and thus ended up making a dull, straight arrow action movie when he had hoped he was making a Nicholas Cage movie.

Would weirdo Nicolas Cage make Season of the Witch a good movie? Likely not but, Nicolas Cage in a bad movie is at the very least always interesting. There is always so much to see when Nicolas Cage finds that odd beat he wants to play. In Peggy Sue Got Married Cage adopted a voice he compared to Gumby’s pal Pokey and nearly got himself fired because he wouldn’t drop the voice. In other films he channels Elvis Presley for reasons only he understands.

It’s weird and it can ruin a movie but it’s always intriguing as we search Cage’s face and manner for that little inflection, that idea that struck only him and reveals his fascination with a role. Sadly, in Season of the Witch that little flavor of Nicholas Cage, that revealing little tick or inflection, that idea that is solely his never emerges and instead we have a bored Nicolas Cage delivering a boring performance in a boring movie.

Movie Review Hellboy

Hellboy (2004) 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro 

Written by Guillermo Del Toro 

Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, David Hyde Pierce, Doug Jones, Karl Roden, Rupert Evans

Release Date April 2nd, 2004

Release Date April 1st, 2004 

What Director Guillermo Del Toro went through to realize his vision of the comic book Hellboy on the big screen is the textbook definition of perseverance. Del Toro survived dozens of pitch meetings, copious amounts of idiotic studio notes about everything from “Why is Hellboy red?” to “Can he have a hellmobile?” to the biggest battle over the casting of Hellboy himself. From day one, Del Toro wanted Ron Perlman. Various studios kept suggesting The Rock, Vin Diesel or even Schwarzenegger (pre-Governator).

If only the vision that Del Toro finally realized was as interesting as the battle to realize it.

Ron Perlman is Hellboy, born in the fires of hell and brought to Earth via a portal opened by the Nazis in 1944. You see, Hitler was a devout occultist and hoped to use a portal created by the legendary Russian bad guy Rasputin (Karl Roden) to unleash the 7 chaos of blah blah whatever. Rasputin was interrupted in his attempt to destroy the world by a group of US Army soldiers, led by President Roosevelt's top advisor on paranormal activity, Professor Broom (John Hurt). The interruption prevented the end of the world and killed Rasputin, sort of. One thing did survive and that was Hellboy.

Sixty years later, Dr. Broom has raised Hellboy as his son and the two fight evil as part of a secret FBI division dedicated to the paranormal. With the help of other freaks like the psychic fish-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones with the voice of David Hyde Pierce) and the pyro-kinetic Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), Hellboy fights evil. Well at first Liz isn't much help, unable to control her fire making capability, she has left the group and is trying to forget her past. Hellboy, nursing a serious crush on Liz, won't let her forget.

The group’s newest member is just a regular guy, Agent John Myers (Rupert Evans). His assignment is to take over Dr. Broom's daily assignment of attempting to cover Hellboy's huge tracks. The media has been hounding FBI Director Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) about Hellboy for years. Still, the FBI always denies his existence with graceful dodges. That task is complicated by Hellboy's constant escapes to retrieve beer, cigars and to see Liz. It's Myers' job to keep Hellboy in line.

When Rasputin rises from the grave, with the help of his henchwoman, an immortal named Ilsa (Biddy Hodson) and a surgery freak dome-wearing Nazi, he brings with him a group of squid-like dogs that feed on human flesh and multiply when killed. The squids are meant to occupy and capture Hellboy and Liz for some convoluted end-of-the-world scheme. If you think my plot description is complicated, see the film and try to figure it out for yourself.

What I liked about Hellboy is Ron Perlman. Perlman plays Hellboy like your average world-weary cop who happens to be seven foot tall and from Hell. Sadly resigned to his fate Hellboy sets about each task in front of him as if this were just another average day. Perlman gives Hellboy humor and depth with the way he delivers his lines and the way he regards the camera and the other actors. Hellboy is the one and only fully fleshed out character in the film.

The rest of the cast is a wash, especially Rupert Evans as Agent Myers. Evans is the first actor I have seen who makes Ben Chaplin look animated. His blank stare and damsel in distress poses should be played for laughs but sadly it's obvious he was playing it all straight. The character of Myers is given a subplot as a romantic rival to Hellboy for Liz Sherman, but it's never a fair fight. As for Selma Blair, one of my absolute favorite actresses, she is sadly on autopilot in this film. She can conjure fire but her eyes never show any flame of interest in the story.

Oddly, the one interesting character aside from Hellboy is the Nazi in the helmet who keeps himself alive through gruesome means. That character is uncredited on IMDB so I know neither the character or the actor’s name, but he was pretty good. He’s a better villain than Karl Roden's Rasputin who is basically Alan Rickman minus charisma.

I will say this for director Guillermo Del Toro, his eye for special effects, makeup and CGI is spectacular. The CGI in Hellboy is some of the best outside of George Lucas and Star Wars. Seamlessly integrated with the actors, very little of the digital shadowing that haunts so much of the CGI effects employed in this type of picture.

If as much work had been put into creating a coherent story as was put into the incredible effects, then Hellboy could have been spectacular. As it is, it's worth seeing for Perlman and the work of Del Toro's special effects, makeup and graphics teams.

Movie Review Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Hellboy 2 The Golden Army (2008) 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Written by Guillermo Del Toro

Starring Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, Anna Walton, Doug Jones, Luke Goss

Release Date July 11th, 2008

Published July 10th, 2008

The most disappointing film of the summer, thus far, is Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. As a fan of the 2004 Hellboy movie from the exceptionally talented writer-director Guillermo Del Toro, I was stoked to see his follow up. Now, I wish he had just moved on to his next project, The Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army returns Ron Perlman to the role of Hellboy, a red demon fighter for humanity. For the uninitiated, Hellboy was discovered by the Nazis but raised by an American scientist. Working for the Bureau of Paranormal Affairs, a secret arm of the government, Hellboy fights battles that no one is supposed to know about.

Four years since Hellboy lost his father, played by John Hurt, and won the heart of Liz (Selma Blair), Hellboy remains a cantankerous, rebellious soul who can't resist getting his picture in the paper, over the objections of his boss (Jeffrey Tambor) who's forced to come up with ever more elaborate spin to convince people Hellboy doesn't exist.

Keeping Hellboy under wraps however becomes far less important once a former member of the Elf royal family, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), decides to end a centuries long truce with humanity. His goal? Destroy humanity and bring the creatures darkness into the light.

To do so Prince Nuada will call on the Golden Army, indestructible soldiers made of solid gold. Standing against him is his sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) who wants to keep the truce in place. She turns to Hellboy for protection and to Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) Hellboy's fishy best friend who falls head over gills in love with her.

Hellboy vs The Golden Army sounds like it should be a pretty awesome battle and as a special effect it's impressive

Unfortunately, it also will by the end be fought with little context and consequence to the story. Writer-director Guillermo Del Toro simply loses interest in the story and turns his attention to crafting creatures and giant special effects.

Some will find Del Toro's choice of visual splendor over storytelling to be dynamic and imaginative. For me however, I was quickly bored with the creatures and the giant effects and longed for the characters to deepen and the story to take on some meaning. I wanted the dueling love stories of Hellboy and Liz and Abe and the Princess to gain meaning.

And finally, I wanted the vibe of cool that Hellboy carried in the first film to return. In the first movie, Star Ron Perlman cultivated a Bogart-like air of detached cool mixed with vulnerability. In Hellboy 2 that vibe is replaced with a bizarre sense of humor that ranges from Men In Black lifts to references to Barry Manilow.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army has a number of unformed ideas that could have been more interesting. At one point in the movie Prince Nuada gets in his head about how humanity doesn't appreciate Hellboy, asking him why he still helps them. For a moment Hellboy is conflicted. The conflict lasts for about a minute and is then discarded. Worse yet, the same idea was played out with more depth and understanding in the X-Men movies. Essentially, the most interesting idea Hellboy 2 has has been done already and done far better.

With its bizarre sense of humor and focus on creature creation over story development, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army becomes an odd mélange of disappointments and undermined ideas. Yes, it's a good looking movie. But who cares.

Movie Review: Blade 2

Blade 2 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Written by David S. Goyer

Starring Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Norman Reedus

Release Date March 25th, 2002 

Published March 24th, 2002

Back in 1998, Blade modernized the tired vampire genre with pure balls to the wall adrenaline and Pre-Matrix quality fight scenes. Forget the brain-dead script and Stephen Dorff's screen chewing, Blade was awesome, pure entertainment and nothing more. Now comes the sequel, and it far surpasses the original. It's bigger, dumber, and even more entertaining.

Blade 2 reintroduces us to our hero, half-vampire, half-human, all-vampire hunter Blade, played by the ultracharismatic Wesley Snipes. He is searching for his mentor, Kris Kristofferson, who we believed to be dead in the first film. We come to find out that he is alive and has been turned into a vampire. Blade finds his mentor and rehabs him with a special serum. Whether the serum worked remains in question for the balance of the film, providing some fun suspense.

But that’s just the beginning. The vampire nation has offered Blade a truce and wants a face-to-face meeting to discuss a plague worse than vampires. It seems there is a mutated vampire virus called the Reaper strain that mutates vampires into stronger, more volatile beings, who feed on both humans and vampires. Blade realizes the reapers are a bigger threat than vampires and agrees to lead a team of vampires known as the Bloodpack, highly trained vamps who had been trained to hunt Blade but now must take orders from him. 

Thankfully, we are spared introductions to each member of the pack save for Reinhardt (Ron Perlmen) and Nyssa, played by the gorgeous Leonor Varela. Norman Reedus rounds out the cast as Blade's lackey and gadget guy. The film is stylish and sly with a fantastic soundtrack of rock-rap claptrap that hits all the right notes, always spiking right as Blade snaps someone’s neck or breaks someone’s limbs. The film is ultraviolent but in a completely cartoonish way, it’s a nod to its comic book roots.

Director Guiermillo Del Toro keeps the pace up and the plot to a minimum providing a perfect balance between gory violence and dark humor. The film never takes itself seriously and never asks the audience to do so either and it is that element that makes this film easier to enjoy than say Resident Evil or Tomb Raider. Blade doesn't care too much about story or character development, it relies on star Wesley Snipes to make the action credible and entertaining. Snipes exceeds expectation, oozing charisma and a dark sense of humor that the character lacked in the first film.

Blade 2 is endlessly entertaining though probably not for everyone. It definitely worked for me and I think it's one of the best films I've seen this year.