spud-eleven 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).

p-stepien 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.

Edd U My god.. This movie is so weak. First of all - not a cartoon for kids, if you didn't read/know that already. I've never done a review before but given the high grade here, I've decided to have a swing at it and sorry if it's all over the place.The story isn't anything new and probably anything new wasn't needed - you can still have good fun with a basic story as told in the plot summary above.. but the movie just doesn't have or do anything with it. The writing is so boring and infantile, not even jackass-funny infantile, mind you. Just your some-kids-learned-some-new-curse-words infantile. It tries so hard to be funny and it shows. No adult jokes, just adult language. That's the comedy here and all it really accomplishes is that you can't show the cartoon to your kids (also a little dash of violence). It cheapens it as if the movie wasn't handicapped enough with the hack writing. The characters are forgettable or just boring and at times just so stupid it's just plain annoying (well, the bard in particular).Since it's a Denmark flick, the original language was probably Danish (I assume) and the dub over wasn't lip-synced, which is not the end of the world, but still - a minor annoyance. Another thing about the dub.. is it me or does nobody there in the dub give a damn about the roles or is it just how the script was written, or is it that just nobody in the movie was really anybody (again referring that most of them are not really memorable)? I mean, even in Disney's, Pixar's or Dreamwork's films you can at least enjoy the acting, the characters are animated and you, whilst still watching essentially a movie for kids, can still sit through it and maybe even be entertained.It's around 87 minutes, but for some reason doesn't seem long whilst being overall boring and unfunny, so that could be a sort of a plus (?). It COULD'VE been a passable kid-flick, because the animation is pretty good .. well, not putting the big budget companies to shame as other reviewers say here, but solid (and by the many overly positive reviews, you'd think, the directors and actors gave themselves a pat on the back for this "stellar job"). It'd be a solid kid flick if you'd cut out the adult themes, but it's not. Because it didn't. Because the adult theme appears to be added by kids who are still giddy about the new naughty words they learned and the weak slapstick comedy they added few and far between to remember or take notice. (Or maybe there's a good heft of comedy lost in translation, but I doubt it) So in short - watch something else.

CurtHerzstark 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....