Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian is a film that is constantly overlooked for it's greatness. It's not Ben Hur, it's not a masterpiece, but is a solid, fantasy film - especially in a sea of so many bad ones.

The acting may be spotty from time to time - after all, we're dealing with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rest of the acting is generally on par with many other action and fantasy films - not entirely bad, often over the top, and always with the villain chewing the scenery.

The violence is explicit. Very explicit. Many would never know this - considering how butchered the film is on TV. It is literally unwatchable in that state - a large amount of this is trimmed - to the point where it ends up being relatively tame.

What I was surprised with was the quality of the direction. John Milius did a competent job bringing Conan to the big screen. However, the one thing going against the film is probably the length - the film clocks in at 130 minutes. How the hell did Oliver Stone co-write the screenplay? Did he go insane after this - seeing conspiracy theories everywhere - or was he able to craft a work that is somehow missing his extremely partisan worldview?

Has anyone noticed how much Thulsa Doom's logo and Obama's logo look alike? What insane (or genius) graphic artist came up with that? Provided is an artificallly colorized version to illustrate what I'm saying.

*** 1/2 out of *****