Solomon Kane, however, puts a unique twist on the story by making our badass hero a devout puritan. Hit the jump to find out more:
Everything about Solomon Kane's plot is predictable: brooding hero, check; damsel in distress, check; masked warlord spreading evil plague, check; evil wizard behind it all, check. It's all been done before; but not like this.
Kane was originally the creation of the king of pulp, Robert E Howard, who wrote the original Conan stories (which are awesome, by the way), and Kane is pretty much the same. However, setting a bog-standard supernatural actioner amongst witch-burnings, devout puritanism and emigrations to America creates an interesting new flavour of film.
Kane posits that the devil is real, witches are real and the puritan lifestyle is ethical, only God needs a lone hero to kick Satan's forked tail back to hell, and that's where James Purefoy comes in. Yes, Thomas Jane's Somerset doppleganger has graduated from BBC costume dramas and he's pretty awesome. There are moments when he risks slipping into Christian Bale Batman-style gravel voice, so you might occasionally need subtitles, but otherwise he does a fine job.
Not that he's the only name in the cast. The film is, in fact, peopled by a rather stunning who's who of British talent: the greatly-missed acting god Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige, Mackenzie Crook in a serious role, Jason Flemyng and, whilst not English, Max Von Sydow is a nice addition too.
Nothing here is ground breaking, but the film keeps you entertained and has enough of a twist to stop your brain trying to escape out your ears and find something better to do. Worth a couple hours of your time by any stretch of the imagination.
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