Solomon Kane

Do you like action movies? Do you like supernatural movies? See this film. I will try and remain spoiler free.

Solomon Kane was a hero created by Robert E Howard (the Conan guy, since I'm sure someone is asking). He was a 16th Century witch hunter, and his stories are some of the oddest of all of Howard's stories. Full disclosure, since more of his work has been released, RE Howard has quickly become my favorite author, and I would argue one of the best of the 20th Century. Back to the movie.

James Purefoy stars as the title character, a reformed pirate turned Puritan witch hunter. My only real complaint with this film was that it really doesn't follow Howard's creation all that closely, however I will give it a pass because this film is almost like an "origin story" for the character, which for some reason has to be done in every film nowadays (I won't distract myself on that here, but I may come back to that subject another day).

The movie was actually a bit difficult to find, I had to get it on eBay, as it never had an official US release, which is really our loss. Instead of something different, we were subjected to another reboot of a failed 70's or 80's franchise, or Transformers 12: T&A on an Aircraft Carrier.

The effects and action sequences are top rate in my opinion. They more than adequately set the scene of stark otherworldliness that Howard strove for in this work, and considering how bizarre the source material could be, that's no mean feat. Purefoy does an excellent job, and director Michael Bassett does an excellent job keeping the movie going at a rapid pace as well as giving sufficient backstory and time for character development. The movie only checks in at 100 minutes, so that's another fairly impressive feat.

Here is a link to the official site with a trailer, so judge for yourself. I myself definitely recommend it. Oh, and another nice thing is that the trailer doesn't automatically start so you won't be diving for the volume on your browser right away.
Solomon Kane