seen all 3 movies, read all the books by the many authors.
This last movie was full of cheesy special affects, coupled with poor acting.
With the exception of Rose McGowan,the choices for characters sucked big time,especially Ron perlman,he is by far the worst actor ever.
Their choce for role of conan doesent even follow any for the books by Howard,jason mamoa is to small build compared to the rest of the cast.
hollywood could have done much better IMHO
if you read the REH books like you say, you would know Conan was not some huge giant of a man,REH likened him to a panther..... Mamoa was perfect,he is like 6'2" he is not small by any means....but Conan was not a body builder he should not be a huge guy....Mamoa was great....he looked the part... had that perfect Cocky Conan attitude..... he made the movie in my eyes....I am talking about the REH books the rest are just wanna be Conan books.and ya I have read them all many times over.
but yes you are so very correct on the Ron Pearlman that whole village scene was horrible, I almost didn't watch it just because of that.....the "race" to see who could train as a warrior....please..... that really bugged me.....the whole village part was absolutely horrible and NOTHING like what REH describes Cimmeria or the cimmerian people.
you are right they could have done better, I wish they would have made "Red Nails"....or "Beyond the Black River"
hell They could have used any one of REH stories, I don't understand why they didn't....