If you're going to make a shitty remake of Conan the Barbarian, you might as well hire a guy who has a long, rich history of shitty remakes. The newest film to be based on Robert E. Howard's muscle-bound Cimmerian thug is directed by Marcus Nispel, the German director whose résumé also includes recent shitty versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and Frankenstein. Here, Nispel has made a meandering, noisy, predictable fantasy movie that wants to possess both the brutal viciousness of the original Conan stories and the plucky, lighthearted air of a Cher video. (Oh, Nispel also directed a few Cher videos, none of which are the Cher videos you remember.) by Ned Lannamann