Like a 5 a.m. alarm — loud, insistent, unwelcome — "Conan the Barbarian" warns that the dreamy summer is coming to an end. A re-make of the loopy 1982 sword-and-sandals classic — loosely based on Robert E. Howard's 1930s stories — the new version has poured gold into special effects, not to mention star Jason Momoa.
Virtually his own special effect, the studly Momoa arrives fresh from his turn as Khal Drogo in HBO's "Game of Thrones." He is the 21st Century's go-to guy for monosyllabic wandering warriors.
This plot sends him on a long and fruitless search for a good bit of dialogue. The last Conan's limited usage of English catapulted him into the California governor's mansion, but we've seen how that turned out.
The new version begins with some family bonding. First, Conan's mother dies giving birth to him on a battlefield. Next, 12-year-old Conan impresses his dad by bringing him the heads of several enemies.
Then, evil warlord Khalar Zym (Stepehn Lang) arrives with his warriors to overrun Conan's village and force Pops to kill himself to save his son. Oh, and he also makes off with a magic talisman, the final piece of a mask that will enable him to do something bad, or worse, just not yet.
The rest of the movie swings from one bloodletting to the next, set at three volumes: loud, too loud and painfully loud. Think of "Conan" as an opportunity for a modern double-feature. You can still listen to it while watching another movie in the next hall of the local multiplex.
For all the head-chopping, thumb-screwing, town-sacking, arm-slashing, horse-punching, boulder-rolling and nose-hacking, what this Conan truly eviscerates is a sense of humor. Director Marcus Nispel is best known for the 2003 remake of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." He doesn't do witty.
Fun fact: Arnold Schwarzenegger had to cut back on his lifting and steroids regime for the previous "Conan," because when rehearsals started he was too musclebound to wield a sword. That's why many of his fight scenes focused more on flexing and ponderously raising the weapon.
As a director, Schwarzenegger had batshit but dedicated John Milius, who worked over a story by Edmund Summer and an initial script by Oliver Stone. Milius infused it with his crypto-Nitzschean philosophizing, but also a fractured reality.
Over the years, production designer Ron Cobb has said their goal was to faithfully recreate an imaginary era, with distinct cultures drawn from Romans and Persians and Milius' beloved Mongols.
That Conan's description of what is best in life — "to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women" — is a simplified version of a quote attributed to Genghis Khan in "The Secret History of the Mongols."
The remake has no such pretensions, or aspirations. This Conan says, "I live, I love, I slay and I am content." Script credits are assigned to Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood, who wrote with the certainty that computer graphics would distract the audience from their work.
At times, they do. After having inadvertently rescued female monk Tamara, whose blood Zym needs, Conan faces sand-and-gravel warriors conjured by Marique, the evil warlord's evil daughter.
There are glowing Maxfield Parrish-settings for soaring minarets and castles, a long-tentacled watery monster, and the occasional distant procession of extras left over from "The Lord of the Rings."
But there's no image quite as useful of the Wheel of Pain in the first movie, with the young Conan chained to push with other slaves in a scene that shows years passing in moments, until he walks alone, fully and even excessively grown.
With two — count 'em — significant female roles, as well as topless serving wenches and topless tavern dancers, "Conan" also does something to fight unemployment among well-endowed actresses.
As Tamara, TV favorite Rachel Nichols starts out strongly enough, although she's later called upon to do a whole series worth of screaming. Like Momoa and unshaven nomads, when you need an evil daughter, Rose McGowan is your girl, even if she looks like she's been trapped in a "Babylon Five" time warp.
But neither one is Valeria, the sword-fighting thief played by Sandhal Bergman who equaled and even rescued Conan in the 1982 movie. And of course, Lang is no James Earl Jones, the monumental villain of that first production.
My Cimmerian ancestors may not be rolling over in their burial mounds over the state of Conan. Even Howard's pulp fiction has little to do with the origins claimed by the royalty of the Franks, who traced their lineage to King Antenor the Cimmerian, who died in 443 B.C.
But I do think the current version would be better if done by Conan O'Brien. As it is, it already amounts to "Conan the Barbarian, please stop."
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