Life's a bitch when your soul is owed to the devil. It's even more of a bitch when you're not even the guy who sold it off. But such is the sad state of affairs for Solomon Kane, the one-time bloodthirsty, amoral, treasure hunting sea captain prone to gunning down his own men for disobedience while spouting off inspirational lines about how he's the only devil his men have to fear when they quake in fright at the evil forces he keeps sending them against in the quest for more riches. But Solomon's a reformed man now, a man who has taken up residence in a monastery and pledged himself to a peaceful life in a desperate bid to atone for his past wrongs in the hope that God will take mercy upon him and restore his soul. It's a plan that may even have worked if not for the evil sorcerer ravaging the land, a potent force that only goes to prove that sometimes the forces of good need to have a little blood lust if they are to prevail. They need to be a little vicious. They need Solomon to pick up his sword.
Yes, boys and girls, Solomon Kane is the creation of Robert E Howard, best known as the creator of Conan The Barbarian. Yes, Kane is the subject of a new screen adventure helmed by Michael Bassett. And, yes, 80's style sword and sorcery adventure is back in a big way with Bassett's thoroughly entertaining screen adaptation.
James Purefoy stars as the title character, a man as prone to violence and evil as any who may walk the earth when we first meet him. Kane has no fear, no morals. There is only the lust for wealth and power and there is no length that Kane will not go to achieve what he wants. He lives in fear of no man and no creature and continues living because he has the physical skills to overcome any sort of creature that he has ever encountered until the fateful day that he encounter's one of Satan's own Reapers and learns that somehow, somewhere, Solomon Kane's soul has been sold and that the time has now come for the Devil to collect. He barely escapes but is there really any point? How long can you hide from the Devil himself? A monastery provides sanctuary for a time but when a horde of magically enhanced thugs and killers begins swarming the land under the control of a hulking, masked warrior under the control of a foul sorcerer Kane is forced back out into the world by the monastery's abbot in the hopes that Kane may seek redemption not in hiding himself away but in protecting the weak and powerless.
Loaded with swordplay, evil creatures and adventure, all of it anchored by the classic antiheroic Kane himself, Solomon Kane is a throwback to the pulpy fantasy adventure genre that creator Robert E Howard once ruled. It is the sort of film that Van Helsing should have been only bigger, bloodier and burlier. James Purefoy has long been touted as the next big leading man and his natural charisma shines through int he title role, while supporting players such as Jason Flemyng, Max Von Sydow and Pete Postlethwaite provide solid work in support. The effects are solid, the action plentiful, and while the swordplay has obviously been planned with a PG-13 audience in mind it pushes as hard against that limit as it can with more than one limb severed and head removed.
Despite a loyal fan following, sword and sorcery fantasy has always been a difficult genre to pull off convincingly and, as such, has largely been neglected in recent years. But with Kane we get a different sort of sword and sorcery hero, one dropped into the puritan era rather than the middle ages, and that simple change breathes new life into a tired beast. Though not a perfect film by any stretch - some of the fighting is shot too close and edited too fast while a couple of the digital effects land only just on the acceptable side of the spectrum - but it is a hugely entertaining one, one loaded with rich characters and strong players and stacks of quality set pieces. I can only hope that the producers of the soon-to-be-revived Conan franchise are paying attention to this one because Solomon Kane is one excellent primer on how to tackle Howard and make him work for today's audiences. No theatrical release has been announced yet but seek it out when the time comes. This is a good one.
I love this character so much.
Haven't read any Howard except for a few Conan books but am really looking forward to seeing this.
Really looking forward to this. Can't wait to see a trailer for it. The concept art looked brilliant so I'm hoping it is close to that.
You. lucky. Sonova.... most anticipated fantasy film. Period.
Why haven't they released a trailer for this yet?
Never even heard that this was being made - but that description sure doesn't sound like Solomon Kane the wandering Puritan swordsman that Howard created: http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Tales-Solomon-Kane/dp/0345461509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242851001&sr=8-1 (every story and poem featuring the character). Doesn't sound like it's actually based on any of the original stories. Too bad :( Suppose there's still room for potential, but that review dashed my hopes as surely as the title of the article raised them.
Trailer, yes please.
Definitely the same character, Tuan Jim. The film is the origin story, basically. It takes him from being a plundering hard ass at the beginning through to his adoption of the faith, putting on the puritan clothes, and then kicking ass to protect England from evil creatures. I don't really know the source stories but the film pretty much matches how I've had them explained to me.
Purefoy was sooooo great in ROME... Can't wait to see him as SOLOMON KANE !!!
That sure was not much of a review, eh? Not very insightful. But the film looks promising, they should have gotten this director Basset to make the new Conan film. Instead of the fool who made a mess of such a cool concept as Pathfinder.
Well I had some time at work today so I re-read the complete set of Solomon Kane stories (fragments and all). Then I got home today and checked out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jGEqOT-8mI -- not impressed at all with what I'm seeing as an attempt to rework the character so a trilogy can be done. Sticking with the original stories and making a trilogy out of them - say starting out in England with something like "Right Hand of Doom" leading to Africa with "Red Shadows" and then following it up with "Hills of the Dead"/"Wings of the Night"/"Footfalls Within" would be awesome...leading back to Europe in the end ("Blue Light of Vengeance", etc)....But trying to create a backstory for an intriguingly enigmatic character - creating traits and whatnot that don't jive with any of the original Howard stories is just a big mistake IMO.
Purefoy might like the material, but he's really bastardizing it. If Howard wanted him to have been a pirate in a "past life", etc (like he did with Conan and Kull), he would have made at least one reference to it. Granted there are brief references to privateering with Drake against the Spanish - rowing in slave galleys in the mediterranean, etc - but nothing Purefoy is trying to do sticks with the historic character references from the actual stories (and poems). Kane's always been a windblown, landless wanderer - but always a Puritan too - strong, solid, stoic - determined to achieve his goals no matter what the obstacles.
Either way, I'll probably watch it when it comes out....anyone got a trailer link yet?
Tuan Jim is right on the money - nothing in the Howard stories, published works or fragments, has Kane ever being evil. He's violent, utterly unrelenting, but definitely a 'good' guy.
The description of the character and storyline here puts this title strongly in the 'inspired by' camp. Which is a pity.
But yeah... I'll most likely watch it too.
I'm excited to see this, but am feeling a little let down about this story as it doesn't sound like anything Howard wrote or intended. I was guessing that Bassett may have incorporated randoms bits of the short stories into the movie, which is fine. All the stories outside of two are very short, so I figure this is what would need to happen.
BUT... as Tuan Jim and Athos point out, there is absolutely no origin story for Kane and that is indeed a big part of what makes the character interesting. Why the heck would a Puritan be running around kicking monster ass? Who knows and who cares? It's a cool enigmatic part of the Kane saga. Explaining a cool enigma away makes it mundane and much less cool. AND is rather presumptuous on Bassett's part.
Oh well, it may still be a great movie but I'm not a fan of origin stories in the first place, and always hope for more pure adaptations of books to film.
I know I'm a wishful thinking book nerd.
Speaking of which the particular book Tuan points out is what I would highly recommend as the best Kane collection due to having the fragments and being illustrated by the outstanding Gary Gianni who currently draws Prince Valient for the papers and used to write and draw The Monster Men as backups to Hellboy in the 1990s.
And Tuan and others who ask, there is a link to the trailer elsewhere on TWITCH... youtube link is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4yoE34Gfds
I am in complete agreement with Tuan Jim observation's. The entire film could be outlined and done according to the stories, why make up a bunch of misleading crap about Solomon Kane, at least we'll still have the stories to read and imagine from.
The lead playing Solomon does not translate to the hardened character in the books either, his expressions are too soft and modern.
The best adaption I've yet seen of Solomon Kane comes in the form of a Marvel comic mini-series back in the mid 80's called Sword of Solomon Kane, the story and art match perfectly with Howard's creation.
Upon viewing the trailer a few more times, this is starting to feel more like a video game type movie. Solomon happens upon some lowly travelers and then they get attacked by baddies, for whatever silly reason the girl is spared and brought back to the baddies lair/castle (whatever) and Solomon has to go through a series of boss fights to retrieve the girl. Bleh.
I'll still probably see the film since it looks like some fun action and fantasy, and the evil characters look pretty cool with the exception of the large cgi flaming thing (which looks like it got snagged from the God of War video games).
Michael J. Bassett for Conan! I agree with some of the above gripes, it is presumptuous of Bassett to change the story around, invent unnecessary background. And Purefoy is too soft-looking, i think somebody lean and mean like Mark Strong would have fit better. But we shall have to see the film ourselves to judge how well Purfeoy plays it and how the tale flows. However, the look of the trailer is sensational, the ambience, the colors, the whole thing looks very well designed and put together. It seems like the time frame of the movie is a pretty liberal mash of dark ages and puritanical times, so what, its fantasy and it looks great.
The trailer can be downloaded in high quality from ign.com
You are right fhoom. It does look great and I am hoping that even though the overarching storyline is not really Howardian, that it culls many of it's scenarios from the short stories themselves. That could be cool.
Thank you very much for this review, Todd Brown. You have restored my fluctuating faith in this film.
It looks very very VERY good, very high quality, excellent props/costumes, music top-class (cheers for Klaus Badelt and his friend Mr Zimmer) and... does anyone know when it's out in the UK?