Howard's Puritan Swordsman Makes His Big Screen Debut

The big problem I had with Solomon Kane is, ironically enough, nothing to do with the film itself. Like the two Schwarzenegger Conan efforts and Kevin Sorbo's Kull the Conqueror what we have here is as much a pastiche of Robert E. Howard's work as it is a faithful adaptation.

As with many of the golden age writers, in the 70-odd years since his work first hit the news stands, Howard's stories have been ruthlessly gutted and pillaged by every two-bit, third rate hack wanting to write a fantasy novel or pen a paint by numbers fantasy film. Indeed, by the time a movie studio gets around to give Howard's work the cinematic treatment it deserves, you're left with the feeling that you've seen it all before.

In that regard, Solomon Kane is more a victim of this pilfering of the source material than it is with any faults in the film-making. Everything about it is derivative. The plot while solid, is entirely predictable and offers little in the way of surprises.

That said, as film adaptations go Solomon Kane is better than most. I will even go a step further and say that this is, to date, the single best film adaptation of Robert E. Howard's work.

For the uninitiated, Solomon Kane is a 16th century puritan swordsman who wanders the earth fighting evil with an almost religious zeal and (in typical Howard fashion) a sharp sword or two. If you're thinking that this sounds rather similar to that Van Helsing movie from a few years ago, you would be right.

However, where that film was a steaming dog pile of CGI heavy action set pieces strung together with gratuitous shots of Kate Beckinsale's cleavage and leather clad posterior, Solomon Kane has rather more meat on its bones.

Where the film really stands out is in the quality of the production - made on a relatively low budget of $40 million, Solomon Kane easily stands up alongside big budget Hollywood efforts made for two to three times the price. British director Michael J. Bassett has clearly set out to do justice to Howard's work, and on most counts he has succeeded. The tone is suitably grim and oppressive; Kane's England is a land of mist, rain and mud, where a man can hardly walk 50 yards down a country road without being set upon by bandits who would happily knife him for his boot laces as for his money.

The action is suitably visceral and brutal, very much on a level with the scenes described in Howard's stories as Kane hacks, stabs and shoots his way through innumerable bald-headed baddies who all manage to look like stunt doubles for Jason Statham. If you've ever wanted to see a movie sword fight where a man's head is hacked off in three blows, or where someone's skull is cleft to the teeth, then this is definitely the one for you.

Unfortunately all of this comes at a price, and it's that the film takes itself a little too seriously for its own good. It's a dark movie, both in tone and cinematography with no humour in the script to break up the tension; and the dialogue, while authentically Howardian ("Silence... you dogs!") is somewhat one-dimensional. This isn't helped by a predictable script, which introduces secondary characters merely to be sword fodder for Kane or his foes. The end result is a film that is exhausting to watch, despite it's sub 2-hour run time.

The biggest flaw though is the distinct lack of a strong villain for Kane to pit himself against; what we get is the archetypal mask-wearing Black Knight (who is no different to any other mask-wearing fantasy villain) who turns up periodically to remind the audience that there's evil at work. In fact, the chief villain doesn't even appear on-screen until the last 10 minutes. It's a lost opportunity, one which could have elavated this film from mere competence to something quite special.

I wouldn't want anyone to think that Solomon Kane is a bad film, it isn't. As I said, as adaptations of Robert E Howard go, this is easily the best attempt to date to adapt one of Howard's characters for a modern audience.

The always watchable James Purefoy is excellent as Solomon Kane, though admittedly his performance isn't anywhere near as compelling as his portrayal of Mark Antony in HBO's Rome, but this has more to do with the limitations of the screenplay than anything else. Howard fans will no doubt appreciate Purefoy's extra touch of authenticity, playing Kane with a West Country accent.

The supporting cast are a bit of a mixed bag - veteran actors Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige and Max Von Sydow are perfectly good casting choices, but the script gives them so little to do that you might wonder why they bothered to show up as almost anyone could have filled their roles.

I certainly didn't dislike Solomon Kane, it is far from perfect but at the same time it stands head and shoulders above big budget Hollywood efforts like 300, or even the remake of Clash of the Titans. It's definitely a good start, and Howard fans can only be glad that a film-maker has finally taken his work seriously and treated it with as much respect as Peter Jackson lavished on Lord of the Rings. Supposedly, a different production company is handling the new Conan movie, scheduled for theatrical release some time in 2011, but if Kane is anything to go by - there's certainly reason to be optimistic.

At the time of writing, Solomon Kane has only seen general release in the UK and parts of Europe, it has yet to find distribution in the United States.