PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL.COM

The only bad thing about seeing Solomon Kane early is… you have to wait even longer than the rest of the world for the sequel.

Thanks to the good people at Ain’t It Cool News, I enjoyed a special privilege today - I was selected, along with several others, to see a distribution screening for the upcoming film Solomon Kane. Created in 1928 by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan The Cimmerian, Kane is a 17th-century Puritan who roams the world fighting all manner of evil - vampires, witches, devils - armed with a rapier, a musket, and his faith in God. A handful of short stories chronicling Kane’s adventures were published in the pulp magazines of the day, but Howard eventually abandoned the character.

Now, over 80 years later, Kane has finally made his way to the big screen (unless you count Van Helsing, which plagiarized the character to such an extent it’s mind-boggling). As a lifelong Robert E. Howard fan, it pleases me to say that despite some problems with the screenplay, the film is a entertaining, well-crafted adventure.

Actor James Purefoy makes for a terrific Solomon Kane. He sinks his teeth into the role, as he did with Mark Antony on the HBO series Rome, and doesn’t let go, deftly portraying a violent man who strives to be peaceful, but can’t stand idly by while good people are made to suffer. Director Michael J. Bassett not only drew solid performances out of everyone - Purefoy, Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige, Max Von Sydow (!) - but he kept the film moving at a good clip and showed a steady hand with the action scenes.

Kudos must also be given to cinematographer Dan Laustsen (Brotherhood Of The Wolf, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) - the film looks fantastic, evoking the bleak, gritty world of Kane with a great deal of skill and a minimum of digital trickery. The costumes and production design are top notch, and Klaus Badlet’s score supports the film nicely, even if the temp tracks were obvious once in a while (the end credits reek of The Dark Knight).

I hesitate to discuss the plot in any detail since the film won’t be released for some time yet, but a number of story beats were plainly inspired by Star Wars and Conan The Barbarian. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

And since the short stories present Kane as a fully formed character, screenwriter / director Michael J. Bassett was obliged to create an origin story for him. When we first meet Kane in the film, he’s a greedy, barbarous man whose quest for gold brings him face to face with Satan’s Reaper, who tells Kane his soul is forfeit for a life of sin and murder. Kane barely escapes and retreats to a monastery, hoping God will absolve him. The notion that Kane is a reformed sinner isn’t a bad one, but I didn’t like the idea that Kane’s conversion was motivated solely by his fear of damnation (and that’s coming from an atheist). Then again, how do you present a sincere religious conversion to a cynical modern-day audience?

Kane isn’t a big-budget film. It has a modest scale, which befits the character and his world. It’s shot and directed in a classic style, which also befits the character and his world. And while it has swordplay and magic aplenty, it’s a surprisingly character-driven movie. Bassett and Purefoy deserve a great deal of credit for giving Kane enough screen time to change and grow before our eyes. By the time Kane dons his trademark cape, sash and hat, the heroics that follow are all the more exciting because you’re emotionally invested in him.

As someone who saw DARK CITY a year before it was released and lamented what they did to it until the director’s cut repaired the damage, I’ll end with a piece of advice for the powers that be in case they stumble across this review…

Do not re-cut or re-shoot it. Do not add more digital effects. Do not tinker with the color-correction or add rock music. You’ve got a solid little movie on your hands that could easily spawn a trilogy. Don’t ruin it trying to turn it into something that it’s not.

Put simply, do not fuck with the movie - it works.