Review of Solomon Kane (2009) by Michael T — 22 Aug 2013

Robert E. Howard is best known for creating the character of the freebooting Cimmerian adventurer Conan, but he wrote in many different genres and created a number of other characters. Solomon Kane was Howard's self-styled Puritan adventurer who had sailed with the likes of Sir Richard Grenville and fought pirates, brigands, vampires, sorcerers, and ghouls in short stories published in a variety of pulps magazines back in the day.

This movie is based on REH's source material but has Kane (James Purefoy) starting out as an evil buccaneer who is hardly the righteous Puritan defender of REH's work. Realizing that he is cursed and his soul has been claimed by the Devil's own Reaper, Kane renounces violence and tries to lead a simple and pious existence.

But an evil sorcerer named Malachai (Jason Fleming) is ravaging an isolated section of England aided by a mysterious masked overlord and an army of evil men. On the good side, Purefoy is good as Kane and there are some very well coordinated fights.

On the minus side, if you are getting tired of CGI effects, you will not like some of Kane's non-human adversaries. While REH's stories took place on the outskirts of civilization or in unexplored parts of Africa, this move has a sinister force attacking villages and laying waste to a good chunk of England and there seems to be no response from Whitehall.

Granted, the film is set in 1603 and Elizabeth I is dying and Parliament is concerned with the matter of Succession, but wouldn't word of this mayhem have reached London? Well, it has the late Pete Postlethwaite in the cast and was an enjoyable romp.

Obviously they wanted this film to be the basis of a series but that did not happen.