Supergirl: A wobbly flight

Supergirl (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for strong action violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

In and of itself, the notion that Kara-El (Milly Alcock) has become a self-destructive tear-away is appropriately poignant.

 

Kara (Milly Alcock, left) repeatedly tries to protect Ruthye (Eve Ridley), by insisting that
she remain safe, but the plucky, sword-wielding young woman refuses to be left behind.

Unlike her older cousin Kal-El (Superman), who had the benefit of loving step-parents and a pastoral Midwestern upbringing, Kara’s backstory is laden with emotionally crippling tragedy (and is faithful to established Super-family lore). No surprise, then, that she spends most of her time on red-sun planets, where her powers are erased, enabling her to indulge in rash behavior and endless drunken binges.

(That said, the notion that she wasn’t killed long ago, while hanging out amid such ill-advised company, is the first sign of trouble in Ana Nogueira’s lamentably uneven and illogical script.)

 

Kara’s current multi-day bender is prompted by her 23rd birthday, an occasion that merely reminds her of the long-gone friends and family members no longer able to celebrate with her.

 

Meanwhile...

 

Elsewhere on Holzherr, the red sun planet where Kara has made her home, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) — the savage, remorseless leader of the vicious, Viking-like Brigand scavengers — gleefully murders weapons craftsman Elias (Ferdinand Kingsley), his wife Delilah (Emily Piggford) and their son Edmond (Bruce Lennox), while younger daughter Ruthye (Eve Ridley) watches in horror.

 

By activating booby traps, Elias destroys Krem’s ship before being cut down. The killer and his remaining men trudge away, certain of finding some alternative means of transportation.

 

Since we later learn that Krem and his all-male Brigands have been kidnapping young women, in order to force them to bear male children, it makes no sense that Krem fails to snatch Ruthye on the spot ... and yet he doesn’t. (Let’s call this the second of the many awkward hiccups raised by Nogueira’s sloppy script.)

 

While getting happily blasted at her favorite local pub, Kara is surprised when the grimly determined Ruthye shows up, offering her father’s sole remaining sword to any mercenary willing to help her track down Krem.

 

This alien-laden setting is a cross between Australian Outback pub, East Asian dive bar and Western American saloon, and laden with ooky aliens that make Star Wars’ Mos Eisley Cantina look like a kindergarten class. No surprise, one of the largest and ugliest pubgoers simply snatches the sword, irritating Kara enough to demand its return ... with predictably violent results.

 

But wait ... red sun planet, remember? Kara has no powers, yet we’re supposed to believe that this 5-foot-5 twentysomething slip of a woman could defeat such a huge pug-ugly? (Shall we call this the script’s third awkward hiccup?)

 

The Wrecking Crew: Aptly titled

The Wrecking Crew (2026) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated R, for strong, bloody violence, relentless profanity, drug use and sexual content

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang 

Star charisma and actors who don’t take themselves too seriously can compensate for eye-rolling material, which is why last year’s Minecraft Movie was so popular, with its fan-favorite pairing of Jason Momoa and Jack Black.

 

James (Dave Bautista, left) and Jonny (Jason Momoa) ponder a document that suggests
a link between a local developer and a shady company dubbed Hayashi Imports.

The same is true of this mostly larkish crime thriller, with its equally successful team-up by Momoa and Dave Bautista.

That “mostly” is warranted, though, because at times Jonathan Tropper’s original screenplay veers into appallingly graphic violence. Director Angel Manuel Soto obviously tries to keep such carnage in a darkly humorous vein, but severed limbs and split heads — as just two examples — go a bit too far.

 

Hawaiian-born half-brothers James (Bautista) and Jonny Hale (Momoa) haven’t seen or spoken to each other for a decade: an estrangement that hearkens back to childhood grievances and traumas. James, a U.S. Navy SEAL commander, trains cadets at Pearl Harbor; Jonny, who relocated to Oklahoma, is a trouble-prone cop, currently suspended.

 

Their equally estranged father, Walter (Brian L. Keaulana), works as a low-rent private investigator in the islands. The film opens as he’s killed by what local police assume is a hit-and-run driver … although we viewers know better, having watched the ominous blue van approach its planned target during the title credits.

 

Before dying, though, Walter pops a small parcel into a post office box.

 

In Oklahoma, Jonny’s typical day goes south when he’s dumped by girlfriend Valentina (Morena Baccarin), who packs all her stuff and displays impressive stunt-driving skills during her departure. (Take note of that.)

 

Shortly thereafter, Jonny is attacked by three Yakuza thugs who demand the parcel; he has no idea what they’re talking about. The subsequent melee is way over the top, pretty much trashes Jonny’s home, and certainly signals the film’s tone to come.

 

This assault and Walter’s subsequent ceremonial funeral — a lovely touch — bring Jonny to Hawaii, and a prickly reunion with James. They couldn’t be more of a contrast: James is a calm, methodical and responsible family man, whereas Jonny is a vulgar, boorish, profanity-spewing slob.

 

Soto and Tropper overplay this mutual antipathy, which continues far too long into this film. The fault lies primarily with the way Momoa has been directed to handle the role; his relentless, horse’s ass behavior threaten to derail what clearly needs to become a “buddy picture.” Thankfully, all concerned get there … just not quickly enough.

Fast X: Over-revved lunacy

Fast X (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence and mild profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.19.23

This series has long verged on becoming a live-action cartoon, and the newest installment definitely crosses that line.

 

Physics, vehicular stamina and the frailty of the human body aren’t even an afterthought in director Louis Leterrier’s tenth (!) entry in this hard-charging franchise, but I’ll say this: He’s definitely the man for the job, having long ago helmed 2002’s enormously entertaining The Transporter and its 2005 sequel.

 

Confronted by a massive, spherical bomb rolling its way through the streets of Rome —
target: The Vatican — Dom and his comrades desperately try to re-route the threat.

This turbo-charged Fast escapade also gets plenty of momentum from a dog-nuts script by Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin, along with rat-a-tat editing by Dylan Highsmith and Kelly Matsumoto.

As an added bonus, Jason Momoa is a memorably and thoroughly reprehensible villain: a deranged, giggling sociopath prone to outré outfits and a mincing manner that make him even scarier. If he were granted a Snidely Whiplash mustache, I’m sure he’d twirl it with glee.

 

The story opens with a cleverly tweaked flashback to a key event in 2011’s Fast Five, as Dom (Vin Diesel) and his crew steal a massive bank vault laden with $100 million belonging to drug kingpin Herman Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). Our heroes subsequently drag the vault through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, laying waste to everything in its path, until the audacious climax on the Teodoro Moscosco Bridge.

 

In this “adjusted” version of events, Reyes perishes on the bridge: a demise witnessed by his violently unbalanced adult son, Dante (Momoa), who barely survives.

 

(This sequence also allows us to spend a few minutes with the late Paul Walker’s Brian O’Connor, which is a nice — and respectful — touch.)

 

As things kick into gear in the present day, Dante — who has spent the intervening 12 years plotting revenge — orchestrates the first in an increasingly lethal series of attacks on everybody Dom holds dear. The goal is not to killDom — at least, not immediately — but to make him suffer the deaths of his friends and family, most particularly main squeeze Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and their 8-year-old son, Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry).

 

Meanwhile, Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Han (Sung Kang) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) jet off to Rome, to handle a heist assigned by the clandestine U.S. government “Agency” that runs off-the-books operations, and until recently has been headed by the equally mysterious “Mr. Nobody” (Kurt Russell).

 

Back home in Los Angeles, Dom and Letty get an unexpected visitor: a badly wounded Cipher (Charlize Theron), the über-nasty who bedeviled our heroes in the series’ previous two installments, most notoriously when she killed Diplomatic Security Service Agent Elena (Elsa Pataky) while Dom watched. 

 

Letty would just as soon put a bullet between Cipher’s eyes, but the latter has just barely survived her own unpleasant encounter with Dante. In a nod to the old mantra — “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” — an uneasy truce is struck.

Dune: Epic sci-fi storytelling

Dune (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for considerable violence, disturbing images and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters and (until November 21) HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

This film’s final line of dialogue, spoken with a soft smile and the hint of promise by a key character: “This is only the beginning.”

 

Deliberate irony, I’m sure, on the part of director Denis Villeneuve.

 

With seconds to spare before a massive sandworm erupts to the desert surface, Gurney
Halleck (Josh Brolin, left) drags Paul (Timothée Chalamet) onto their ornithopter, just
as the aircraft takes off.

Folks wondering how Frank Herbert’s complex 1965 novel could be condensed into a 155-minute movie need wonder no longer. Misleading publicity notwithstanding, this actually is Dune: Part One … with the second half likely several years away.

From what I recall — the read was decades ago — Villeneuve and co-scripters Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth get slightly more than halfway into Herbert’s chunky book. In fairness, the breakpoint is logical — more or less where Herbert divided the two portions of his novel — and the film’s conclusion is reasonably satisfying.

 

But let’s just say that about 17 chads are left hanging. Resolution ain’t in the cards. Not yet.

 

That aside, Villeneuve’s always engaging film is a breathtaking display of sci-fi world-building: absolutely an honorable adaptation of Herbert’s blend of future-dreaming, socio-political commentary and (for its time) ground-breaking eco-fiction.

 

Dune has, practically since publication, been the great white whale of filmmakers. Surrealistic Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky spent three years, in the mid-1970s, trying to mount an adaptation that would have starred David Carradine and Salvador Dali(!), with music by Pink Floyd (!!); the project finally collapsed when backers bolted over the rising budget. 

 

David Lynch’s misbegotten effort, deservedly loathed by fans and critics, did make it to the screen in 1984 (and more’s the pity).

 

The 2000 TV miniseries isn’t bad; it also isn’t very good.

 

Neither holds a candle to the bravura work by Villeneuve and the massive, massive crew that brought this vision to the screen. This is true sense-of-wonder moviemaking.

 

For all its merits, Herbert’s novel is a slog at times, burdened by didactic passages and tediously descriptive prose. This film’s greatest achievement — scripters, take a bow — is the distillation of such stuff: retaining just enough to highlight the essential plot points and narrative beats, while simultaneously juicing up dramatic tension.

 

That makes this film frequently exciting: something that’s rarely true of Herbert’s novel. Villeneuve and editor Joe Walker move things along at a suspenseful clip, and matters almost never flag. (This can’t be said of Villeneuve’s previous film, Blade Runner 2049, which — despite its many merits — is hampered by far too many dull stretches of Nothing Much Happens).

 

With Dune finally realized so marvelously on the big screen, one can readily see — as just the most obviously example — how much this story influenced George Lucas.

Aquaman: Waterlogged

Aquaman (2018) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for considerable sci-fi action and violence, and occasional profanity.
By Derrick Bang

This film has serious issues with tone and balance.

Far too much of director James Wan’s narrative — he shares writing chores with Will Beall, Geoff Johns and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick — sags beneath the weight of overly florid, Shakespearean-style dialog that most cast members lack the gravitas to pull off.

Having burrowed deep beneath the Sahara Desert, to discover the remnants of a long-
lost undersea kingdom, Arthur (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard) activate a device
that will provide the next clue to the whereabouts of the fabled Lost Trident of Atlan.

And which is compromised further by the mildly earthy comments tossed off by star Jason Momoa. Mind you, he’s good with a quip, and Wan apparently felt that such contrasting elocution styles would be amusing. Instead, it’s merely awkward.

Then there’s the matter of villains. A superhero is only as good — as interesting — as his adversaries, and Momoa’s Aquaman has two. By far the more stylish, and far more dangerous, is a high-tech pirate known as Manta, played with savage malevolence by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. He’s a baddie to be reckoned with: a rage machine who radiates danger and has serious issues with our hero.

But Manta is relegated to B-villain status: an afterthought who isn’t much of a problem, and ultimately becomes a joke.

Which is ironic, because the true joke is Patrick Wilson’s laughably awful handling of the alpha villain: Aquaman’s half-brother Orm, would-be despotic ruler of all the undersea kingdoms. Wilson is atrociously out of his depth — pun intended — and radiates about as much menace as damp Kleenex. He looks and sounds like a whiny little boy who’s about to have his toys taken away.

This film collapses every time Wilson speaks a line, or faces off against the far more formidable Momoa.

I’m guessing Wan brought Wilson along for the ride, because the two of them have worked together on a bunch of nasty little horror flicks (the Insidious and Conjuring series, The Nun). Which points further to Wan’s poor judgment.

Aquaman also suffers from excess been there/done that: the inevitable result of too many superhero films piling atop each other. The regal look and sound of Atlantis, with its massive statuary and guarded “approach bridge” — and its position as one of seven mythic undersea kingdoms — are blatant echoes of Thor’s Asgard and its neighboring eight realms.

Aquaman’s mano a mano duels with Orm, over control of the Atlantean throne, are straight out of the Black Panther playbook … where, rest assured, the clashes were handled far better, and carried much greater emotional weight.

Justice League: And so it begins...

Justice League (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang

Seeing director Zack Snyder’s name attached to this film was not happy news, given the degree to which he ruined both 2013’s Man of Steel and last year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Having responded to the bat-signal illuminated by Police Commissioner Gordon (J.K.
Simmons, far left), the newly formed Justice League — from left, Wonder Woman (Gal
Gadot), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Batman (Ben Affleck) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) —
learn that Gotham City is, once again, in serious trouble.

Snyder has much in common with director Michael Bay, similarly notorious for the Transformers franchise. Both favor bloated, soulless, humorless slugfests that wreak havoc on landscapes and cityscapes, while casually snuffing hundreds (thousands?) of civilian bystanders. Their films are the very definition of mindless product over art.

On the other hand, I was cheered to note Joss Whedon as co-scripter on Justice League. As the writer/director of 2012’s The Avengers, Whedon established the template for solid, successful superhero epics. Fans have recognized Whedon’s gift since television’s Buffy slayed her first vampire, back in 1996: He has an unerring talent for blending action fantasy with a (frequently droll) human element, which eases our suspension of disbelief.

And is a helluva lot more fun.

It’s easy to spot Whedon’s touch in Justice League, which is most successful during its first and second acts, as the stage is set, and the players assembled. It’s equally easy to see that the third act belongs to Snyder ... but not entirely. Even here, we get the vicarious relief of the unmistakable Whedon touch.

Justice League picks up in the immediate wake of Batman v Superman. The latter is dead, having perished at the hands of a Kryptonian monster genetically engineered by the villainous Lex Luthor. The country (the world?) is sliding quickly into anarchy, humanity apparently having abandoned hope after losing its gallant symbol for truth, justice and the American way.

(Ah ... but is Big Blue really, truly dead?)

Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Diana Prince (the Amazon Wonder Woman) are doing their best to stem the lawless tide, but they operate in the shadows; they’re not “living symbols” in the manner of Superman. Worse yet, Batman has been encountering winged “parademons” — very hard to kill — that seem to be seeking something.

Mindful of the need for additional super-powered allies, in order to hold off whatever comes next, Bruce and Diana reach out to three promising individuals: Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a twentysomething nerd transformed by a lightning strike into The Flash; Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), dubbed Aquaman, and heir to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis; and Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), a once-promising college football player nearly killed in a horrific accident, and “saved” when his scientist father Silas (Joe Morton) employed alien tech to transform his son into the biomechanical Cyborg.

Bullet to the Head: Somebody stop this guy, before he "acts" again...

Bullet to the Head (2013) • View trailer
1.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity, nudity and constant violence
By Derrick Bang

The surprise success of 2010’s The Expendables had an unpleasant side effect: It gave Sylvester Stallone the impression that he had a career to revive, and now we’re stuck with vulgar trash such as Bullet to the Head.

Real men don't settle their differences with guns; they use axes. Apparently having
decided that his film isn't violent enough, director Walter Hill tries for the gold when
professional assassin Jimmy Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone) goes one-on-one with
the towering Keegan (Jason Momoa).

The other depressing surprise is the depth to which director Walter Hill’s career has sunk. The once-promising young stylist — who, back in the day, impressed us with The Warriors, The Long Riders and 48 Hrs. — has been reduced to exploitative sleaze that I’d normally expect to debut as a late-Friday-night Cinemax original.

But while Stallone and Hill bring nothing worthwhile to this dumb crime thriller, the lion’s share of blame belongs to so-called screenwriter Alessandro Camon, whose efforts here don’t even qualify as creative typing. He has adapted French writer Alexis Nolent’s three-part graphic novel series, Headshot (aka Du plomb dans la tête), with a complete absence of grace, wit and plot logic.

Nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing — in Camon’s narrative makes sense. Various low-level characters are introduced solely so Stallone’s James “Jimmy” Bonomo can blow them away. The pattern is repeated ad nauseum: Some guy is found, he blusters profanely before giving up the name of the some other guy; he takes a bullet to the head. And then on to the next one.

And I won’t even attempt to describe the plot “surprise” that occupies the blood-soaked climax, at which point Camon’s scribblings truly enter cloud cuckoo-land.

I keep reminding myself that well-paid executives at Warner Bros. apparently found merit in this swill. What were they smoking that day?

Hill signals his tawdry sensibilities with the opening scene, as some insignificant goon inhales dollops of cocaine, chases it down with a pint or so of vodka, and heads toward the naked Russian hooker waiting perkily in the shower. (It should be mentioned that only two significant female characters inhabit this story, both apparently present so they can flash their boobs.)

This wholesome scene is interrupted by Jimmy and partner Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda), who wave badges and stride into the hotel room, as their unhappy host babbles about warrants and lawyers. Ah, but Jimmy and Louis aren’t cops; they’re professional killers. One dead scumbag later, they’re on their way, Jimmy rather inexplicably having failed to kill the witnessing hooker as well.

Could this have been a mistake? Moments later, while chilling at a bar, Louis is killed by Keegan (Jason Momoa), a towering mercenary who tries — but fails — to off Jimmy as well.

Elsewhere across town, visiting detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) checks in with New Orleans cops Lebreton (Dane Rhodes) and Towne (Marcus Lyle Brown). Kwon is pursuing a lead that got his partner killed back in Washington, D.C.; Lebreton and Towne aren’t inclined to be helpful, but they don’t object when the newcomer expresses interest in this hot-off-the-griddle hotel killing.

Thanks to frequent phone chats with an amazing departmental researcher (never shown) back in D.C., who always gets results in seconds, Kwon quickly hooks up with Jimmy and proposes an uneasy alliance: They both lost partners, so how ’bout teaming up to defeat the common enemy? Jimmy makes a great show of declining — Stallone’s granite-faced scowl struggling mightily to express anything resembling a flicker of actual emotion — but of course they immediately become allies.

And start up the criminal food chain, in the manner previously described, to Kwon’s ongoing horror.

“You can’t just shoot a guy like that!” he protests, the first time (or was it the third?).

“I just did,” Jimmy replies, in what passes for banter in this numbnuts script.

The final link in said chain is Robert Nkomo Morel (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a ruthless financier who fled some African country (!) in order to become a shady developer in New Orleans. He’s assisted by Baptiste (Christian Slater), a crooked lawyer who fancies himself an Old World aristocrat and loves to throw hedonistic parties.

Jimmy and Kwon catch up with Baptiste at the latter’s lavish masked ball, where — wouldn’t you know it — many of the women apparently forgot their costumes.

Kwon manages to take a bullet in the shoulder (no, not in the head) somewhere along the way, at which point Jimmy brings him to a low-rent tattoo parlor, where sexy needle artist Lisa (Sarah Shahi) patches up the poor boy, employing the skills she learned during her single year at medical school. Turns out Lisa is Jimmy’s daughter — goodness, what a surprise! — and of course she’s the one thing in this world that he truly cares about, blah, blah, blah.

Cue Lisa’s abduction by Keegan. Normally, you’d be able to write the rest of this silly story the way a 5-year-old connects the dots, but an unexpected — nay, deranged — impulse on Keegan’s part changes the dynamic a bit. Not for the better. Maybe that plot hiccup played well in Nolent’s graphic novel, but it sure is stupid here.

Stallone’s “performance” in this flick is a joke, the few acting chops he possessed, eons ago, obviously have abandoned him. One has to wonder if cosmetic surgery has left him with nothing but the brooding, sleepy-eyed glower that is his sole expression throughout this entire film.

Kang, probably recognized from the Fast and Furious franchise, has plenty of presence and acting talent; in a better project, he’d obviously shine. But this script makes Kwon a walking joke who repeatedly behaves like a moron; there simply isn’t any reason Jimmy wouldn’t whack this interloper and be done with him. Try as he might, Kang can’t earn any sympathy or respect here.

Momoa, the former Baywatch hunk who recently failed to re-ignite the Conan franchise, comes off a bit better as Keegan. He makes a pretty good hovering menace: the sort of secondary baddie sent off to do all the dirty work at the behest of a James Bondian megalomaniac. (Indeed, Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s Morel has that cartoonish aspect.)

Shahi shows some resourceful spunk as Lisa, but it’s another thankless role; she functions mainly as a Woman In Peril. Slater simply wastes his time in, yes, yet another under-developed part.

Nobody else remains on camera long enough to worry about.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent attempt to revive his career — The Last Stand — at least had the good sense not to take itself seriously; Arnie also was smart enough to surround himself with reasonably well-drawn supporting characters and Johnny Knoxville’s comic skills. Bullet to the Head, in great contrast, is as humorless and unwaveringly tedious as Stallone’s frozen-faced mug.

Rubbish this incompetent will serve only to stoke the fires of publicity-minded politicians eager to castigate the rising levels of violence in cinema. This flick is bound to make the top of such lists ... with a bullet.

Conan the Barbarian: Quite barbaric

Conan the Barbarian (2011) • View trailer for Conan the Barbarian
Two stars. Rating: R, for strong, bloody violence, gore, nudity and sensuality
By Derrick Bang


You sure didn't want to be a woman during the Hyborian Age.

Or a horse.

Conan (Jason Momoa, left) has just rescued Tamara (Rachel Nichols) from a
bad guy. Conan's now about to beat the stuffing out of said bad guy, while
Tamara cowers in terror. In fairness, Tamara soon will demonstrate quite a bit
more pluck: a good thing, because this gloomy flick needs all the personality
it can get.

The latter, apparently deemed of no value, routinely had their legs cut out from under them, in order to unseat the rider for easier dispatch on the ground.

The former, apparently deemed of minimal value, were enslaved or snatched as chattel, reflexively raped and passed among fellow mercenaries like biscuits at an afternoon tea. Which, from all appearances, seems not to have bothered these usually bare-breasted babes, who enthusiastically accepted their lustful lot in life. (I believe we call this a male-centric point of view.)

Exceptions existed, of course. Some women were lucky enough to train as sequestered monks; they lived a peaceful life until adversity forced them to demonstrate damn impressive fighting skills. (You never can tell about those monks!)

Alternatively, a growing young woman could become a witch, at which point she got to wear Freddy Krueger-style razored fingernails and summon sand demons. While remaining more or less fully clad, which I guess would have been a bonus.

These efforts at mocking levity represent the sole comedy relief you'll get from Conan the Barbarian, as humorless a thud-and-blunder bloodbath as I've seen in awhile. Yes, author Robert E. Howard's iconic warrior has been resurrected yet again: the most recent entry in a revival that began in the early 1970s, when Howard's 1930s Weird Tales novelettes were adapted into a popular Marvel Comics series, which in turn encouraged paperback reprints of the original stories and, a bit later, a 1982 film — and 1984 sequel — that boosted Arnold Schwarzenegger's nascent career.

While this new film's Jason Momoa certainly sports the necessary physique for all this hacking and slashing, he's at best only a marginally better actor than Schwarzenegger was. Young Leo Howard does a much better job as Conan's boyhood self, in this film's first act; for openers, he has a much better scowl.

Not that acting chops are of much significance. Momoa gets by on the sort of monosyllabic grunts and chopped-off sentences that Johnny Weissmuller made famous as the similarly heroic Tarzan, way back in the day. The so-called story here — stitched together by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood — is long on battlefield fury and eyebrow-raising coincidence, and short on plot logic or common sense.