Colin

With Summer near enough over the movies started to slowly dry up. All that remained was the remnants of the Summer blockbusters and of course The Inbetweeners Movie, and I didn’t really fancy that due to the fact I’m 25 years old.

I’m fairly sure there are plenty of people out there who like The Inbetweeners, well I’m definitely sure, I have Facebook, it‘s the only thing people spoke about for about seven weeks. I’ve never got into the hit E4 show, from the stuff I’ve seen it’s okay, crude but it has it’s moments. These moments aren’t laugh out loud, but they raise a smile.

When they revealed they’d be doing a movie version I was a little bemused. The Inbetweeners is shown on TV and is a certificate 18, so therefore it’s on after the watershed. See, the thing is the bulk of its audience is under 18, we’re talking 15-18 year olds, so the movie would simply be a flop because of those young whipersnappers not being allowed through the screen doors.

No surprises then when its certificate was revealed as a 15. Fair enough guys, make your money. Sorry people but if you’ve been to see this, you’ve wasted your money. They’ve restricted themselves to only a certificate 15 level of crude, and is essentially three episodes back to back. A big money spinner for the makers, no wonder there’s more TV shows being rumoured to be made into movies.

ANYWAY moving away from The Inbetweeners, I instead chose to watch Colin, sorry Conan, oh yes they’ve only gone and remade Conan the Barbarian. I wouldn’t mind, but why? It’s not like it was a good movie when Arnie did it! But remade it they have.

Is it any good? What do you think? It’s just a big masculine pile of testosterone with blood and guts a-plenty! No really, the amount of gore in this thing is so ridiculous it’s close to being humorous. There’s so much stabby-stabby and slicey-dicey going on in this movie you feel like you're watching Kill Bill. It has ten times more blood and guts than actual dialogue. That’s not a bad thing though as the screenplay is woeful and must have been written on the back of a Subway napkin.

Here’s a tip-top line from the movie: Colin takes his lady friend into a cave and says the following: “I live, I love, I slay, and I am content.” Then he proceeds to get it on with her. Woman love corny lines apparently. Going to have to try that one out myself Colin…

There is one line however that didn’t make it into the script. Remember this is a remake, so you’d expect some throwbacks to the previous film. I sat waiting for the one line, which is one of my favourites in history:

“Crom (God)... grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!”

It’s a classic Arnie line and it would’ve been nice if they included it, heck it might have even got it a whole extra star if it did. But alas it did not so it loses out!

The plot is fairly basic and predictable. Colin loses his village as a boy and so seeks revenge, travelling the world until he gets it. The man he seeks is the general from Avatar who goes on about The Wizard of Oz all the time. He wants to collect all the pieces of an evil mask that will help him take over the world. All he needs is the blood from a pure-blood, which happens to be a random woman Colin runs into.

The baddie has a daughter who delves into magic spells and other witchcraft. She has these finger blades that are the worst weapons I’ve seen in a long time. Those things would be useless when faced with a sword, but for some reason in the movie, she can hold her own against anyone with drawing pins on the tips of her fingers. Whatever.

It doesn’t leave much of an impact on you. What I’ll remember it for is the amount of blood and gore that's in it. Which lead me to my final point: why is this movie just a 15? It’s immensely violent, with almost every scene featuring someone being killed in a horrific way. Decapitation, boiled by molten lava, crushed, stabbed, cutting off someone’s nose and prodding the gaping hole with your fingers. Yep pretty violent.

There’s even a sex scene which features a fair amount of nudity in it. The only thing this movie doesn’t have is swearing. Is this why it didn’t get an 18? Because it held its tongue? If that is the case, doesn’t violence trump language when it comes to film classification?

What else could this movie have done to get an 18? Shout out the C-word twentyseven times? Honestly I cant think of anything! Colin would’ve practically had to sodomise her to get up to an 18! I think if this movie came out ten years ago we’d be looking at an 18. But since it’s come out in 2011 it gets a meagre 15, putting it in the same category as The Inbetweeners. Whatever.

I don’t really see the point in this movie to be honest. It’s just a movie for teenagers to get excited about gore, like they do. There’s even a sex scene in there. We were sat in with a group of teenage boys who thoroughly enjoyed that scene, as you can imagine.

My advice to anyone is to stay away. It’s no surprise it lasted around a week in most cinemas. I should have gone to see The Inbetweeners Movie…

Final Verdict: 1 Star. An unnecessary remake done pretty badly.