Ronal the Barbarian (2011)

i must have seen a different film!!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

So first off, you might be wondering why you never heard of this movie… well this is because it was actually a Danish movie. That's right, this (from what I can find out anyway) was only released in Denmark even though it has English and Danish voice actors. Because of this, there are some things that I don't really understand as far as jokes go.So the story is pretty much the fish out of water story told a dozen times before. In fact, most of the characters feel loosely based on characters seen in 'How to Train your Dragon'. We have the slightly wimpy Barbarian (substitute Barbarian with Viking and you get Hiccup), the rather tough Warrior Shield Woman (Counterpart would be Astrid), the rather jerky and womanizing Bard (Counterpart would be Snotlout… and if you say he isn't a womanizer, have you seen how he acts to Astrid?), the flamboyant Elf (I feel like he was a mix of both Tuffnut and Fishlegs), and the father figure who wants the wimp to be a perfect Barbarian (Pretty much Stoick). Now I don't normally like to compare two movies or shows much, but it was hard for me not to find this as more of an adult form of one of my favorite movies... and in my opinion, it is pretty lacking. So basically the main story goes along the lines of all the barbarians are kidnapped and Ronal is supposed to be the one to save them. Ya, sound like something else? The evil Volcazar wants to capture all the decedents of the warrior Krong, the one who defeated the god of Volcazar's tribe. Volcazar's tribe is basically the tribe of Masicistic Satanic lust from what I actually gathered. To be fair, I think all the different groups of people in this fantasy world just get on my nerves. All the different tribes and races felt much more like stereotypes. The Barbarians were like Jocks, Amazons like sex crazy cheerleaders, and elves… well you can tell what they probably were like (For those who can't tell, they were very flamboyant). This movie is not a children's movie by any stretch of the imagination. There are references and imagery that would probably be found in the adult cartoons we have here in America like close-ups of the ass and the… um… supposedly endowed lead male. I don't know fully if this is because it is a Danish movie or if it was made specifically for Adults as they have different customs but it does get very overwhelming very quickly with just how many references they put into it in just a few moments. Hell, the enemies henchmen are pretty much dressed and act a lot like masochists with the amount of pain they put on themselves and the leather they wear. (Talking more stereotypical here. Not everyone who is masochistic dresses like these guys.) This movie was done with CG graphics and though the designs are very interesting and the texture work is pretty nice, the animation isn't all that great. There are times the characters move so fast that I wonder if they forgot to soften the key positions while animating it. The model's motions seem to pop into place at times making the scenes feel jarring and unnatural. I give them some points for trying but the movement really was the part that made me shy away.I watched the English voice acting, and it was seriously fast. Not sure if it was something with the translations not fitting the amount of time they had, but I found it very hard to follow. When it did finally calm down, I was so confused of what the heck had just happened. It only slowed down about 40 minutes into the movie but it felt like I was only watching it for 10 minutes. You could call that good movie in that it doesn't drag, but when all you pretty much got was a lot of sexual jokes and high pitch whining from the main character, I don't know if that's a good movie or not. So you have noticed that I haven't talked much on the voice actors, well there really isn't much to say on them. Pierce Cravens is the voice of Ronal and he plays off the wimpy whine of that voice rather well though I kind of wish this wasn't our main character. There are plenty of 'wimpy' sounding main characters that I liked before, Hiccup from 'How to Train your Dragon' being one of them. This one however gets on my nerves. And do not get me started on the country hick voice Ben Bledsoe gave for Alibert, the bard. I think the only two I actually liked was Ashley Carin as the shield warrior Zandra and the Oliver Vaquer as the very fruity elf Elric. The music is… forgettable for the most part. I think the only one that was actually memorable was the ending song which was pretty much a rock Ballard about Ronal which I think was called 'Barbarian Rhapsody'. I'm not much into rock but it wasn't bad. So I guess we came to the important question of what I thought about this movie. Well… I can't lie, I didn't like it. I had a couple nice chuckles from the stereotypes, the spoofs, and some of the odd jokes but overall it was kind of painful to watch. The animation and the voices seemed lacking and the overall story went way to fast to not fast enough. It was OK, but I didn't get much enjoyment.

The other reviewer apparently wasn't watching the same picture that I was. Ronal the Barbarian is a weakling who must rise to the occasion when all of his clanmates are captured for evil purposes, and seeks to liberate them by finding and wielding the Sword of Crane in a fully tongue-in-cheek sendup of sword-and-sorcery pictures, spoofing Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian and loads of imitators in addition to riffing wickedly upon the goofy relationship between classic heavy metal and the fantasy genre. The gags translate very well and if you're a fan of Robert E. Howard like I am you'll have more than a few hearty laughs out of this, especially a scene where Ronal uses an invisibility potion to perform a heist - man, that was funny! I can't understand why the other reviewer dumped on this picture (In Danish with English subtitles - I preferred this; English dubbed version available in some markets).

Ronal is the seven stone weakling and the rest of his tribe, the Barbarians, are all built like Arnie. Guess who will be the hero? Ronal the Barbarian is simply one the better kick-back and enjoy it films of the year: rude, sure but not so much that it's gross, violent, not so much actually, and fun - lots and lots of fun.We just enjoyed this - it's beautifully made, and visually it is really rewarding - nothing skimped here except the clothing for both the men and women - all the men are muscle bound in Borat thongs and all the girls positively pneumatic and Teutonic - however it all fits the style well sure it's gratuitous, but it is not offensive.The surprise is how good the plot and the script are - the time flies by and there is enough substance here to make this more than watchable.Above all this is just a kick-back and enjoy it animated adventure that lampoons the Conan genre perfectly while doing so affectionately. The time whizzed by - the voice acting was a notch above - especially when considering this was in Danish and dubbed into English - and overall this would simply be one of the most straight-up enjoyable films of year. Very much recommended if Game of Thrones with lots of laughs and silliness rocks your boat...

Pixar, Dreamworks animation etc have all done great stuff within the animation genre and especially with 3D animation. Outside of the USA things have been slightly different.There have been some attempts by France, Spain etc but some have been very disappointing and others have been mediocre at best. Films like Renaissance (2006), Kaena: La prophétie (2003), have been entertaining but usually lacking both in story and technically.When comes to the Scandinavian countries it is even more rare to see a full length animated feature that actually is just as good as their counterparts.Ronal Barbaren (2011) seems to be just that movie. Film is about young Ronal who is a weak geek, among tough, hard barbarians (even the women have bigger biceps then him) but must go on dangerous journey in order to save his tribe from the evil Volcazar.On his quest of course he meets lots of weird individuals, who joins him and in the process helps him to grow as person.In the bottom of this funny film is a serious coming of age story, aimed mainly at teens who may or may not recognize themselves in young Ronal and his band of misfits.The most refreshing about this film is the non Disney approach, meaning trying to only suit a massmarket, using bland stereotypes, musical scenes, and predictable story lines.The directors is not breaking new ground, this film filled with crude adolescent humor, sex jokes and is basically a parody of Lord of the rings, Conan etc but delivers mainly because US productions is very family oriented while this film is mainly directed at teenagers and adults with a very crude sense of humor.I urge anyone to see this film, you will probably not see anything like it in USA for a long time.Unless of course Seth McFarlane decides to make a 3D film....