Conan O’Brien Must Go: A Mostly Disappointing Action/Adventure Series
Reviewed by Angus McCallum for TheHumbleHeckler.com.
When it comes to action, Conan O’Brien is no Arnold. But, then again, who is? Let’s face it, for more than four decades Arnie’s been the George Washington on the Mount Rushmore of Hollywood action superstars. There’s never been anyone like him. So what was Conan O’Brien and his team thinking when they decided to mount a modern-day retelling of the all-time Ah-node classic Conan the Barbarian? It can’t be just because of the whole shared-name thing, right? We all know how much Hollywood loves to cash in on established brands and popular IPs, but this is really pushing it. And, not surprisingly, it doesn’t quite work.
Let’s start with the action. There really isn’t much. Conan never fights a giant snake monster or decimates an enemy army on the field of battle. There are no beheadings, no disembowelments, no chopping off of limbs and then wielding them as fleshy cudgels to finish off wounded opponents. There’s no reveling in the spilled blood of fallen victims. No fiery steeds carrying fallen heroes off to Valhalla. Hell, there’s nary a bemused facial expression to be found anywhere in this so-called “action/adventure series.” You’d think at some point Conan would at least stumble from a late-night pub crawl and attempt to silence a smart-mouthed cab driver or sarcastic passerby with the threat of some drunken, uncoordinated form of physical violence. Nope. We don’t even get a halfway-decent slap fight.
But that isn’t to say the comedian’s new globetrotting adventure series doesn’t have its moments. There are some genuine surprises, and even a few flat-out shocks. Take, for example, the scene in Thailand in which an ill-tempered Conan bites the head off a sewer rat, then spits it at a shoeless child. And then there’s the time in Norway when he broke into the Fram Museum after hours and set fire to GjØa (the first ship to traverse the Northwest Passage), causing irreparable damage to a priceless cultural treasure. Actually, now that I think about it, I started drinking about ten minutes into the first episode, so those last couple of scenes likely never happened.
Anyway, if you’re looking for action, violence, and bloodshed, Conan O’Brien Must Go is probably not your best bet. But, if you’re into stupid crap like travel, comedy, and making human connections across seemingly insurmountable racial, political, socioeconomic, and geographical barriers, then I guess you might not want to flush this particular bloodless turd.
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