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**Note I can't remember any of the character's names other than Conan despite the fact that I wrote this immediately after returning home from the screening. SPOILERS AHOY

Jason Momoa is fantastic. He looks and moves like Conan should, he can handle his sword well, and is appropriately gruff and curt. Sadly, they put him in a terrible movie (and have him spout some awful lines).

The sets and costumes are excellent (except for a couple of the obvious CGI landscapes), the weapons look great. I also liked the battle scenes and didn't find the editing very distracting...like Ninja Assassin, there's lots of fast cuts, but the action is still coherent and very bloody. The kid who plays young Conan was decent, too. Here ends my praise.

The two main antagonists in this film are just awful. The necromancer's quest to put back together his ridiculous octopus mask is lame (and the CGI when it comes to life is TERRIBLE), and his double scimitar thing is even lamer. He never really seemed truly threatening or powerful. Rose McGowan's character seems to have wandered in from a different movie altogether, perhaps one of the Star Wars prequels. She's totally out of place, yet clearly a powerful spellcaster (the dust soldiers she summons were pretty cool), but when the chips are down and she's fighting for her life, she's reduced to punching and kicking the trueblood chick. Weak.

The back story of the antagonists was trite and uninteresting, so it's not that exciting when Conan kills them. The battle between Conan and the bad guy on the rotating circle of death falling down the pit at the end was one of the cheesiest things ever. There were plot holes you could readily maneuver the Goodyear blimp through, but here's a handful of random stupidity:

What's up with the silly character with the eye patch? He seems to be a thief of some renown in the City of Thieves, but when he comes along with Conan on a mission, he's a blubbering idiot who gets immediately relegated to comic relief. He's like an unpleasant combination of the worst things about Subotai and Malak.

What happened to Bob Sapp's death scene? We get the closeup of his surprised face with a blade to his throat, but then nothing. It was almost like they couldn't get the scene to look right so it got butchered together in the editing room.

Conan's black friend on the boat is incredibly dumb. Conan knows the pureblood girl is in danger so asks him to take her far away. So he sends her off alone on foot to fuck Conan and find her way back to the ship by the next day. Of course she's captured. They might as well have put a giant neon sign around his neck that said "PLOT CONTRIVANCE".

No prayer to Crom. WTF.

Ron Perlman's character has so much shaggy blond hair, all I could think of was the old TV show Beauty and the Beast and how much he looked like his character Vincent the lion man.

There's at least 6 separate shots of people raising a sword into the air and screaming triumphantly as cheesy music swells over an aerial tracking shot. The music in general was very goofy sounding, it has none of the grandeur of Poledouris' score. At least there were no heavy metal guitars.

Once the bad guy had the mask working, why did he not start using its power against Conan? Nope, he just kept bashing away with his swords...you know, because that had been working so well for him.

I always assumed the line about Conan being "born in battle" was a flowery way of saying he was born during a time of turmoil and war...not that he was literally birthed by emergency C-section amidst a raging battle. That scene and the bit with Ron Perlman raising up the baby to sky (and screaming triumphantly as cheesy music swells over an aerial tracking shot) a la Simba in the Lion King was cringe worthy.

The 3D was mostly flat and added almost nothing.

No way to disguise it, this was a huge disappointment for me. I am of the opinion that the original Conan the Barbarian is one of the best movies ever made, so I didn't really expect the remake to live up to it. I just wish it hadn't reminded me so much of Conan the Destroyer. Actually, Conan the Destroyer was better than this.

5.5/10 and that's a generous fanboy score because I liked Momoa and the fight scenes. Despite my complaints, it's definitely not as bad as the critics would have you believe. It's just not really good like it should have been.