Solomon Kane (2009)

The hero, Solomon Kane, is an early 16th century Puritan who roams the earth fighting evil. The character was introduced in 1928 by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan.

This movie is a wonderful sword and sorcery story. It's not quite true to the Solomon Kane stories as written by Howard, but it's a very exciting and entertaining origin story for the Kane character. Purists may complain that it's not verbatim Howard, but it is well written. Presumably now that he has been given a back story, he can go forth in sequels vanquishing evil in true Howard fashion.

The film introduces Solomon Kane as a murderous privateer who one day discovers that his wicked past has caught up with him and the devil is ready to claim his soul. A near escape from the devil's own reaper is enough to set Kane on the path to righteousness. He forsakes his violent past to become a man of peace but, as they will do, circumstances conspire against him.

James Purefoy is marvelous, as always, in the Kane role. He is one of those rare actors who can deliver pages of exposition with a well timed facial expression. Max von Sydow and Pete Postlethwaite are excellent in their supporting roles. Rachel Hurd-Wood is luminous as the young Puritan girl whose rescue becomes Kane's mission.

As sword and sorcery should be, this film is quite dark...figuratively and literally. Dark magic, demons, ghouls, witches, bloodletting, murder, and torture are portrayed against a background of dark, dreary, icy winter days not to mention the somber dress and sober speech of the Puritans as Solomon Kane seeks redemption for his past transgressions.

This movie was originally premiered in 2009 and went into release in Europe in 2010. US fans of Kane and Howard have had to wait until now for a domestic release. It's a mystery why this film didn't find a US distributor until now, but the long dry spell is over. It's terrific! I have one of the region 2 DVDs, and was pleased to see the HD instant video rental is better quality. I'm looking forward to a Reg A BluRay release in the not too distant future, too!

Highly recommended!

Can a person who has sinned truly be redeemed, and if so, how can he do it?

That question is at the heart of "Solomon Kane," a grimy, rainy story focused on a man who has done horrible things, and now desperately tries to redeem himself. But despite a lack of real setting, Michael J. Bassett's dark fantasy is a strangely compelling, haunting one, and James Purefoy's lean, desperate performance fits his character beautifully.

For many years, mercenary Solomon Kane (Purefoy) killed and stole without regard for anyone. But in one raid in Africa, he found the Devil's reaper waiting for him -and only barely escaped. Terrified by the prospect of hell, Solomon devotes himself to peace and God at a monastery. And after the abbot sends him out into the world, Solomon befriends a family of Puritans, particularly the pure-hearted Meredith (Rachel Hurd-Wood).

But when the family is slaughtered and Meredith is kidnapped, Solomon throws aside his vow of nonviolence, believing that saving her from death will save his soul from hell's grip. So he sets out to rescue her from the evil sorcerer Malachai, his skin-masked swordsman, and his hordes of cursed soldiers but he has little idea of what they're planning for him.

I honestly didn't expect to like "Solomon Kane" as much as I did -most movies that try to combine action with theological/philosophical stuff fail miserably. But somehow it just clicks in this movie, especially since the main character truly believes himself to be destined for hell, but he tries to do the right thing anyway.

And Solomon's world is suitably bleak: a gritty, muddy, rain-soaked, grey-skied world, where witches and black-eyed soldiers wander around killing people. There are some filler scenes (like the crazy priest tossing Solomon to a zombie pack), but the story feels almost like a spiritual journey that happens to have a lot of hack'n'slash gore and forbidding dark castles in it.

But it does have some flaws -there's a lot of theological sketchiness, and apparently one of hell's best minions is a... wingless Balrog. And the whole crucifixion scene felt unnecessary and a little silly ("GOD, GIVE ME STREEEEEEEEEEENNNNN...").

But James Purefoy gives a really powerful performance, giving Solomon a raw, hungry energy and a dark-light duality that is very compelling -he's a natural warrior, but craves peace and justice. It's also rather refreshing that he doesn't have any romantic tension with Rachel Hurd-Wood's wide-eyed Meredith -Solomon just admires and treasures her for her innocence and kindness.

"Solomon Kane" is a movie I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did, especially since I'm still scarred by the horrors of "Jonah Hex." But it ends up being a gritty, gripping quest with some very strong acting.

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This is an Awesome Movie! I am a bigtime REH fan and although this might not be word for word Howard text, personally I believe it accuratly embodies the spirit of Solomon Kane. I love it.

UNFORTUNANTLY!!! For whatever lame reason this has not been released in Theaters or on DVD in America. So what do you do?

I bought the UK version trying to be legit and all, and although its real nicely packaged, it is no better than any of the high quality Peer to Peer versions available for download. The disc itself is a little less than 4 gigs and the bitrate is unimpressive.

My advice is to either wait till someday it does come out in America and then buy it (hopefully a better copy) or buy the Blu-Ray Disc for twice the money and assume that its of better production quality.

I dont fault the seller, but the manufactuer.

Read Best Reviews of Solomon Kane (2009) Here

When I was growing up, it was through Robert E. Howard's Conan and the Lord of the Rings that I got introduced to Fantasy. As much as I enjoyed Conan, I actually found Solomon Kane to be a superior character created by Howard, although there were fewer stories and since I don't think Frazetta ever did a cover for the paperback reissue, it did not nearly approach the popularity of at least many of the Conan stories in the 70s.

That said, when I encountered this on rental with Amazon, I had to check it out for old time's sake, and thoroughly enjoyed the production values, the acting and direction of the film, and its overall faithfullness to Howard's original character and to the ambience (moody, dreary, winter) of some of the Solomon Kane stories. Solomon, as I recall, was a Puritan swashbuckler who dedicated his life to finding and fighting demonic evil. He is not a "fun" character, but the religious underlay of his motivation in the film is relevant without being cloying. Quality of the rental and streaming on the XBox360 was excellent.

The story is fast paced, and the back story is quickly and effectively delivered. I watched in HD, and the special effects were mostly quite good IMO, although I found the fleet battle in the beginning not very convincing -but it can't be on more than thirty seconds. Dialog drew a good balance between avoiding obvious anachronisms while avoiding pedantic fidelity to the language of the day. Likewise, fighting and stunts were also generally plausible. There is no fencing per se in this movie -rather there is sword "fighting". It's about survival. I had never seen a demon quite like the CGI demon who comes after Solomon in the climax, but it was very effective. The supporting cast (Von Sydow and Postlewaite and others) are excellent.

How disappointing that this was not released at all in the USA in theaters. I really hope there will be a sequel.

RECOMMENDED: No sexual content or language, but considerable graphic violence and blood.

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I have been waiting for Solomon Kane to arrive in the US for quite some time. The title has languished, sadly labeled "unknown release" at the bottom of my Netflix queue for over a year. And then, lo, Amazon offered a "pre-theater release rental."

The film was a delightful dark fantasy romp with stunning visuals provided by effects master Patrick Tatopoulos. Filled with action and adventure, the movie did a good job of representing the spirit of Howard's classic Solomon Kane. It weaves together incidents that could be the subject of Howard short stories into a strong storyline and pays homage to the original fantasy witchhunter. With good pacing and a tip of the (large, Puritan) hat to classic adventure films, the movie actually provides a far more entertaining experience than many recent, more lauded fantasy adventure films.

The format currently offered by Amazon (pre-theater streaming) is absolutely brilliant. I wish more companies would release films this way. I was able to thoroughly enjoy the film in the comfort of my own home on my own system. This distribution model is wonderful, and I hope more follow it. I, for one, am more than willing to pay a few dollars more for the opportunity to avoid the theater experience and its added costs.

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