By: Leather Beds

Leather Beds — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:12:50 +0000

from the very first scene, you are basically told this movie is going to be over the top in a bad and very lazy way.. apparently Conan is “battle born”, in other words his father Ron Perlman is surrounded by countless merciless foes, of which he takes down a couple while screaming, and then he tends to his pregnant wife, akin to a scene from the recent Cowboys & Aliens, we are taught that during Hollywood battles you are allowed respite from the enemy if you enter an emotional two shot close up with a loved or cherished one, no one will dare attack you, it simply wouldn’t be fair.. so yes amidst the carnage Perlman and wife share some tender and distraught words, she wishes to see her son before she dies, and without even really looking he takes a nasty looking knife and performs the fastest C-section known to mankind, and voila.. he brings up a CGI baby.. the mother looks on, smiles, then dies, Hellboy is highly moved by these events, so decides to perform a Lion King and holds the child aloft and screams out loud, the camera pulls in beckoning the film’s title to force itself upon us.. this scene literally lasts 3-4 minutes.. and none of the attacking savages notices it happening, or pays any attention to the angry barbarian king screaming and holding a newborn baby above his head.. As i said i came into this film willing to hold my disbelief.. but seriously.. could this scene not have taken place in a hut or some other hidden shelter? Conan would still have been “battle-born”, the first thing he tasted (like every child) would still have been his mother’s blood, yet it would have been ten times more intimate and moving, and hundred times more believable. I completely understand this isn’t meant to be highbrow, but there’s no harm in adding just a slight bit of realism and genuine emotion to a fundamental scene, It will only involve the audience more and at little expense to any of the tone. As a result of this scene, I never cared for any character for any moment.. the film failed from its very inception.

Comments on: Roy Thomas reflects on “Conan”

By: Leather Beds