If you want to know why you may never have heard of Solomon Kane I suggest you look no further than the title, which means nothing if not supported by marketing, trailers or promotion of any kind. As far as I know this film apparently merited none of that, because I had never heard of it until one of the imdb films I was peeping had it in the ‘sort-of-the-same’ box.
It’s a pity, because Solomon Kane is better than that, not much better mind you, but a great many films have gunned for the LotR vibe in the last decade and not gone nearly as well as this one did.
I guess the cast did the film no favours as well. ‘Headlined’ by the late, great Pete Postlethwaite – at least in terms of name recognition, with the 80 something Max Von Sydow in little more than a two part cameo, the only other guy I recognised was Jason Flemyng in a key role, but a brief one.
The actual ‘star’ of the film is James Purefoy, whose previous big break was in the original Resident Evil film, essentially as one of the guys that dies behind Alice. As Solomon Kane Purefoy isn’t asked to show emotion, charisma and personality, which is probably why he is so adequate for the role.
Not great. Not perfect. Adequate.
The film opens in the year 1600 in North Africa, in a land of violence, magic and conflict. Solomon Kane is a bearded, scraggly haired soldier who is 100 per cent serious 100% of the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Unfortunately as we learn in the opening minutes he has welched on a deal with the Devil, who in turn as opted to damn his soul forever. This unexpected turn of events compels Solomon to renounce violence and seek a life of purity, which he initially finds in the peaceful sanctuary of the church. Unfortunately even the church have standards, and they fear reprisals from the forces of evil for harbouring such a man.
The newly peaceful Solomon walks the Earth, wanted by neither Heaven nor Hell. The new, improved Solomon takes no sides, offers no opinions, he probably offsets his carbon footprint…
Still he takes the uniform rebuffing well, and after some unwelcome ructions is taken in by a religious family of ever so good Samaritans of whom Postlethwaite is the patriach. This family is on the road to a brave new world, the USA, which to my mind didn’t exist yet in 1600? But then again magic and Demons do so who am I to argue? The family asks that Solomon tag along, and even though he is duty bound to proffer information about his unsavoury past they seem to like the company as they navigate very inhospitable lands.
It is when faced with the most inhospitable of locals in the form of the evil wizard Malachai, whose raiders strafe the lands, killing the elderly, conscripting the young fit men and taking the women for themselves. Malachai himself remains holed up in a fortress far away, allowing his Raiders to do the dirty work under the watchful gaze of huge emotionless overlord – a man who would not look out of place at a Slipknot show.
Faced with the choice of watching on as his travelling companions are butchered of going back to his violent ways Solomon chooses to take the higher path. Initially.
Of course as we all know non-violence solves nothing. In fact it is violence that pretty much saves this film as Solomon seeks to fulfil a promise made to rescue the captured daughter Meredith or die trying.
While Solomon Kane is quite a violent film in the same way as Black Death and the Conan reboot were in recent years, it is a little more creative than that. An early scene sees several soldiers captured by creatures emerging from large mirrors and in the latter stages Solomon faces the occupant of a much larger mirror one on one… In between there is enough hack ‘n’ slash for the gorehounds and unique characters and creatures to please the Dungeons and Dragons brigade.
It’s a welcome relief to actually find a film that at least tries to fill a gap that has been practically dead since Peter Jackson took his Gollum and went home. While this will not be the film that revives the moribund fantasy genre it is a more than adequate example of how even a semi-decent fantasy film can make a boring weekend just a little more palatable.
Final Rating – 7 / 10. Like last year’s John Carter, Solomon Kane struggles to find an audience because of a title that tells you nothing. They could have even called this ‘Generic Dark Fantasy Flick’ and I would have sought it out much earlier than I did.
