the leading man is my tpye

ridiculous rating

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

An evident homage to role playing games and the whole fantasy in general, the computer animated feature "Ronal the Barbarian" falters on various fields - from the story department right on to the graphics, which at times look like taken from an online kids flick (cheap, rough and passable at best). Animations unfortunately aren't crude in inspired "South Park" fashion, but instead are hampered by a poor choice in aesthetic feel, especially when glancing on the shimmering faces of our ill-crafted hero.Ronal comes from a clan of barbaric super-beings, descendants of the fierce warrior Crom, a heroic glorified figure, who once conquered the purest evil from Metalonia. His muscle-bulging tribe inherited the strength of their great ancestor by drinking his blood, thus themselves gaining the traits of invincibility. Ronal however is himself a weakling, unable to properly yielding a sword, thus a laughing stock and subject of much ridicule. However during a surprise attack - caused in part by Ronal's physical inability to sound an alarm - the entire tribe, save for Ronal, is captured by the evil forces of Lord Volcazar, hellbent on world domination and the rule of darkness. Only one weapon can pierce the armour of Lord Volcazar - the sword of Crom, thus reluctantly forcing the young feeble lad on an ill-advised quest. On his way he is joined by a rag tag of allies, such as a chubby foul-mouthed, dry-humping bard Aliberth, a deadly shield maid, who searches for someone capable of defeating her (thus earning her hand in marriage) Zandra and a narcissistic, dandelion elf Elric.Ronal himself has an unflinching feel of repetitiveness, too close to comfort to the character of Hiccup from the "How to Train a Dragon" movie, as if somewhat of an expansion of his traits and frailties, only set in an adult-friendly environment. Despite a markedly different plot the general overview is pretty much identical, just with the PG rating thrown out the window, all for the benefit of sado-maso gadgets and some on-screen fatalities. Nonetheless the biggest fault lies with the story itself (albeit the unfocused animatics are a disruptive presence throughout), which attempts to infuse laughter through a stock of lewd jokes, mostly falling pretty flat on the face. Probably the biggest success is the character of Elric with his exaggerated elven traits, so sweetly pirouetting during a bloody fight. The rest of the protagonists fall flat and tire out the material potential pretty fast, thus quickly resorting to crude jokes for salvation (which for the most part don't work).That said a lot of jokes could have just been lost in translation, dubbed out with passable English dialogues in place of the potentially superior Danish language version. Unfortunately the truth of the matter will never be known.

"Ronal the Barbarian" had the potential to be a great parody of the sword and sorcery sub-genre of fantasy, but it ends being a repetition of the typical formula from many other CGI animated films from the previous years: One outcast which is considered a "loser" by the rest of its community had the chance to became a hero due unexpected circumstances. There is also one "funny" character as his friend and ally, and also one assertive (Well, passive–aggressive in this case) female character, which despite being more talented, stronger (and certainly, more interesting)than the so-called-hero, had only a secondary role in the story, in order to include a forced element of romance.Even when this movie includes some off-color jokes and a PG-13 level of violence (With some deaths and little blood, but nothing too graphic) the truth is that I found this movie to be incredibly childish and forgettable as well. It wasn't terrible, and certainly there were a couple of funny moments (Despite the clichés) but the final result was forgettable at best.The animation from this movie is merely decent, having a very similar aesthetic to many other CGI animated films which had the influence of Pixar and Dreamworks films.I think that the best part from this movie (Without being sarcastic) where the end credits which included a funny parody of Heavy Metal songs associated with the fantasy films from the eighties. Beside of that, this was a fairly average film.

I watched this out of pure curiosity, to see if "adult" animation was still little boys playing dress-up in daddy's suits making dick jokes when actual adult (read: complex story lines and interesting characters with actual stakes) animation is being made right now by Pixar and Dreamworks. It is still like that sadly, for some "adult" mean aiming directly for language, sex and violence and doing it so heavy handedly that it becomes more childish instead. Now, the film does look fairly good to its credit so it has that going for it, too bad everything else about it is poor.Think along the lines of Scary Movie, Vampires Suck and Meet the Spartans and you have an acutely good idea of what this is, near humor-like substitute for those who know no better or much in general. Had it been live action, it would have been classed as absolute dreck but being animated seems to have saved it from actual criticism which is a shame.The characters aren't likable and are weakly written ciphers when they're not being stereotypes, the plot is flimsy even for your basic "unlikely hero rises to challenge in order to save family" storyline and the worst aspect of it is the supposed "adult" orientation it supposedly has. Like I said earlier, it revels in the fact it knows how to swear, make constant testicle gags (including one which just went on for far too long) and what boobies are. Problem is though, you need to be funny sometimes without relying on insult comedy, making a weak dick joke or just saying "fuck" to keep things going.I say it's not horrible because you do get one or two decent jokes and it's not ugly most of the time to look at though but when your script is the same person speaking every line but coming out of different bodies it can't really hope for greatness. Oh and it's short too, cheaply made kids film short which seems fitting.

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....