Barbarian

This is a zero budget film that looks amateurish in many parts. The Barbarian is mediocre at best, but it does have a star with a ton of potential - Mike O'Hearn. Hopefully O'Hearn goes on to bigger and better things, he certainly deserves to. He has the face, the body, and even the voice. He could be a superstar with some serious acting coaching and the right film roles.

This is a straight-to-video adventure flick, made in Russia, probably with the same crew Corman paid to do the Playmate remake of his Pam Grier potboiler THE ARENA. Strictly for those whose guilty pleasures include the DEATHSTALKER and BARBARIAN QUEEN series. Mike 0'Hearn provides the ample beefcake, but in decidedly off-kilter GQ style. B-movie villain Martin Kove is thrown in for good measure as the only other pronounceable cast member. Forgive the histrionics while they flex!

This is a zero budget, amateurish film that is laughably poor in parts. Obviously made on the cheap, with scenes cut in and some very poor acting and dubbing. It was made in the Crimea, in Ukraine and the scenery is the best thing about it. The soundtrack has been over-dubbed subsequent to filming, presumably because the local actresses accents were too heavy to be understood. This has made an already clunking script even more laughably bad. Where filing is off location, the sets are blatantly plywood, with no attempt made for solidity or weightiness.

Assorted bad guys are too clean, the same locations are used for different parts of the plot, and overall it looks like it was thrown together in a wet weekend. Good points: the scenery, and surprisingly the score. And the girls are very pretty. Bad points: the rest of the movie.

This film is ostensibly an attempted remake of the original Deathstalker movie. It even plunders numerous scenes from the aforementioned such as the warriors banquet for instance (presumably to a) save on money and b) pad out the running time) In reference to the first point, viewing the film it is immediately blatant that this was shot on a very tight budget indeed.

But of course cheap doesn't necessarily equate to crap does it? So the question obviously is, is this film any good?

Well yes and no in fact.....

On the plus side, as other reviewers have noted, Michael O'Hearn looks splendid in the role as the barbarian Kane (basically the same character as Deathstalker but actually far more amiable) There are also a number of rather well choreographed fight scenes utilising an interesting variety of weapons. A big plus for the guys now: The ladies in this film are absolutely stunning! (and virtually all of them at some point are seen topless!)

Sounds pretty good so far? Well.....let us consider some of the bad points...

For one, Martin Kove is dreadfully wasted in his role as the main villain. I'm presuming, judging by the amount of scenes he was actually in, that he only had a day or twos work on this movie.

Another very irritating (not to mention down right bloody infuriating) gripe I have with this film is the ridiculous character of 'Wooby'. What in the hell was the point of inserting this 'thing' into the film?! It looks like a cross between a shrunken wookie and a piece of rotting carpet! - and don't even get me started about the ridiculous, 'supposed to be cute' noises it emits!

Finally, the movie has quite obviously been entirely (and very poorly) re-dubbed throughout.

To conclude then, I guess that if you look upon this as a sort of modern tribute to the sword and sorcery movies of the 1980's that were all the rage in the wake of the success of Conan the Barbarian then you may find it to be worth a look (for nostalgia purposes if nothing else) Likewise, fans of TV series such as Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess may find some not inconsiderable enjoyment here as this film does carry a similar (albeit more violent) feel to it. However, overall in comparison to many of it's brethren in the Sword and Sorcery genre this sadly comes out as only average at best.

Entertaining movie with lots of hot girls!!!! What all movies should be!!!!

AMAZON GIRL was RREEAALLLY HOT!! Wooby was totally SWEET and had LOTS of funny moments as well!! Princess had nice legs, and when I say nice I mean NICE!!!!!!! Great family movie!!! All in all I'd give it 12 thumbs up, WAY UP!! I loved the tournament, the narrator and all those CRAZY fighters with all those SICK weapons, YEEAHH!! The editing was flawless, I couldn't even tell the difference between the NEW FOOOTAGE and the FOOOTAGE from DEATHSTALKER!!!! Special effects were great, especially Munkar's transformation at the end. He was KILLER fast!! Can't wait for the sequel.

Barbarian would make an awesome franchise/video game/action figure!!