SanteeFats Wow a SyFy movie that is actually good!! You have a mercenary who foreswears violence after he learns his soul is going to Hell. He retreats to a monastery as part of his restitution to his oath to God. After a couple of years he is told by the abbot to leave it and go out in to the world again. He joins a small group who are peace lovers, they actually resemble Pilgrims in dress. Anyway he still refuses to fight even after their small camp is attacked by the devil spawn of Malichi. He then renounces his vow of peace after they kill the father and kidnap the young daughter. Pursuing the evil ones he eventually over takes them. Along the way he has picked up some supporting forces. There is the epic battle of good versus evil and of course good wins out. The girl is rescued and the hero is saved from Hell. Basically a pretty good movie.

MBunge Sometimes the movie business makes you shake your head and sigh. Sometimes it just really pisses you off. Watching Solomon Kane was the latter experience. As a fan of Robert E. Howard's dour, puritan adventurer, I was quite excited when I heard he was finally making it to the big screen. I mean…at least it had to be better than Kevin Sorbo as King Kull, right?Wrong.If this had been a good film but an unfaithful adaptation of Howard's work, I could've accept that. If it had hewed closely to the pistol- blasting, sword-wielding, explicitly Christian fanatic that REH created but sucked as a motion picture, I could have lived with that. Writer/director Michael J. Bassett, however, managed to screw this pooch coming and going. Whatever affection for or commitment to the source material he may have had, he let his ego run wild and decided to substitute his vision for REH's. Which would have been bad enough but then that vision turned out to be as hazy as Mr. Magoo's and as shopworn as a 53 year old crack whore.Let me start by addressing my fellow REH fans. You may be tempted to view this thing in the future. Don't. There is little to nothing of REH to be found here. This is a freakin' prequel, for pete's sake. It is set BEFORE any of the Kane stories or poems and purports to explain how Kane became the icy crusader against evil that you and I enjoyed reading about. Now, you may be thinking that means Solomon Kane is like a feature- length version of the origin story from the Schwarzenegger Conan flick. It isn't. This thing gives us a Solomon Kane who is a greedy, self- centered and somewhat cowardly bastard and is transformed by experiences into a steely, unflinching slayer of villains and monsters of all sorts. Imagine if Conan had started out as some effete, Hyborean Age accountant and turned into a barbarian thief and warrior. Who wants to see that? Bassett then compounds his arrogant error of thinking anyone would be interested in him de-and then reconstructing the creation of a writer a thousand times better than he with filmmaking skill on the level of a basset hound. Let's start with the most elementary of his mistakes. He introduces Kane as a murderer obsessed with treasurer who is told by a demon that his actions have damned him to Hell, causing Kane to flee to a monastery and be even more obsessed with saving his own soul, to the point that he begs like a little bitch when the head of the order throws him out. I don't recall Kane doing anything all that heroic for almost the first half of the film, and even then he only kills a bunch of bad guys AFTER they've slaughtered most of the Puritan family who took him in and kidnapped the family's daughter. Kane then gallops around killing possessed raiders, with no apparent plan of how this would lead him to the missing girl, and falls into alcoholic despair when told the girl has been killed. It's only when he learns she's alive that Kane rouses himself and confronts those responsible. That turns out to be Leatherface, who has somehow traveled back in time like Army of Darkness to the early 1600's in England, and this other dude who looks like he's been lifted entirely out of a REH Conan story because pre-history Cimmeria and Jolly Old England are interchangeable to a "writer" like Bassett. After defeating them and a CGI fire-demon that appears to have a slow wifi connection, Kane sets out as a redeemed soul ready for the stories REH came up with.Oh, and there's also this bit about an old friend of Kane who helps rally the people against Leatherface and the Conan sorcerer. Except he's introduced with about a half-hour to go in the movie, despite the movie starting out in Kane's past during roughly the same time this doofus was supposed to know him. Why not have the guy appear in those scenes and then return later in the story? Because if this guy hung out with Kane when he was a greedy, murdering bastard, that would make him a greedy, murdering bastard too, wouldn't it? Bassett somehow realized that would be problematic for a minor supporting character, but not that it was an even bigger problem for his main character. Forest. Trees. You know the rest.And this thing also has several flashbacks to Kane's childhood and we find out that the evildoers he's facing now are connected to what happened in those flashbacks. I guess because being horrible and vicious killers who pillage the countryside and massacre scores of innocents isn't bad enough. They have to have a backstory with the hero, as though that's going to be what finally gets the audience's attention.This is a prequel for a character that, sadly, few people have ever heard of. It takes nearly half its runtime to get that character into his classic outfit. Then by its end, he's abandoned that look and is garbed like some generic D'Artagnan-wannabe.On the plus side, the sword fights are okay.If you see this on a nearby screen, look away and go find the original stories by REH. You'll be glad you did.

Travis_K I began watching this film with fairly high expectations. It seemed like a cool premise and something I'd really want to see. This film rose above and beyond my expectations, I really enjoyed it. I had seen almost none of James Purefoy's work before this one, and i think that he did an amazing job as Solomon Kane. He played the different sides of the character extremely well. He can play the ruthless, greedy Kane we see at the beginning as well as the pacifist Kane who has given up violence. I now want to see more of his work because of this film. This film had a smaller budget than some others in the same genre, and because of this some of the special effects looked somewhat cheep at times. They are still good, just based on how good the story line, the acting, and the all around feel of the movie was it should have gotten more funds. This does not change the fact that this is a very great film. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good fantasy or action film

Colin Christian Wow,James Purefoy nailed it. I feel obliged to write a review here as this movie seems to be overlooked at every turn,which just seems wrong. After consuming all of Howard's Conan stories I searched for more and that is where I found Solomon Kane.i never expected to see his exploits on screen,yet here we are,with a magnificent James Purefoy in the role. People have mentioned how much he resembled Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing,but sorry folks,Solomon was here first and this flick does him the honor he deserves.The movie is beautiful,scenes of forests and snowy fields are gorgeous,doesn't look cheap for a second.The costumes, sets and makeup are great,yes,I could have done without the CGI near the end,but the rest of the flick delivers in spades. Purefoy just gets the part,it was page brought to life like few others I have seen,he is electrifying as Solomon,the West Country accent,the Puritanism,the badassery...all of it. When he 'becomes' Solomon? Boy.... It's amazing. Well done to all involved,I love the movie,you did Howard proud.