Michael J. Bassett | 104 mins | Blu-ray | 2.35:1 | UK, Czech Republic & France / English | 15 / R
The year 1600: British ship’s captain Solomon Kane is not a nice man, a mite too fond of pillagin’ and killin’ and quite possibly other not-nice things ending in —in’. That is until he has a run in with the Devil’s Reaper. Hell has claimed his soul, and its time to collect. Solomon does not plan on being collected, renouncing his former life and trying to hide at a monastery in England. But as a gang of possessed men lay waste to the countryside, burning its towns and enslaving its people, will Solomon be able to stick to his newfound pacifism? Yeah, we all know the answer to that…
Star of a series of pulp fantasy stories and poems by Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, this version of Solomon Kane is inspired by those works rather than adapted from them. It’s an origin story, showing how Solomon came to be the man he is in Howard’s tales, though you’d be forgiven for missing that: writer-director (and lifelong fan) Bassett has managed to construct a story that feels entirely complete in itself, not mere setup for future adventures. Even though the ending is ready for the planned-but-unlikely sequels, it’s open for, rather than expectant of, them; a pleasing oddity in today’s franchise-driven blockbuster landscape.
The style is a fantasy-horror mash-up, recalling everything from the 1982 Conan to Witchfinder General, and plenty more besides. That’s not to say its a rip-off of those movies, or even some kind of cobbled-together reference-fest, but rather that its roots and inspirations — the previous works it aligns itself with — are discernible for those familiar with them. There’s some creepy creatures and sequences, no doubt thanks to Bassett’s previous directing horror movies, 
but also a more-than-requisite amount of swordfighting and the like — all told, Kane is more period action-adventure (with demons) than period horror.
Nonetheless, some viewers have found the pacing off. It’s true that after a big opening action scene the story slows down for a time, and that later on events become a tad episodic, but I think this gives the film more of a unique flavour than your usual action-adventure flick, where the action sequences are carefully designed to build in scale and are methodically spaced throughout the running time. The way Bassett plays things allows more time for character and mood to grow, and while his screenplay doesn’t always excel at uncovering those things, a first-rate cast brings the necessary.
In the titular role, James Purefoy is best as snarling action hero rather than when tormented and penitent… but that might just be because all-action Kane is more fun. Indeed, the less-nice version we meet in the opening sequence is perhaps the best of all. On his solo audio commentary, Bassett says that everyone on the crew fell in love with that incarnation, and suggests there might be room for a prequel starring the pre-heroic version of the character. If we’re not getting sequels then we’re certainly not getting that, but Kane’s anti-hero antics do promise entertainment value. (I’ve read that Kane isn’t actually all that nice in Howard’s original stories — perhaps, contrary to the film’s “origin story” aims, more like the movie’s opening version? The film has given me a desire to check out the original works, though I don’t know when I’ll get round to it.)
In support there’s the likes of Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige and Max von Sydow, all of whom bring instant heft to roles that need it. I don’t mean to say the screenplay doesn’t contain it, but the shorthand the actors bring with them certainly does favours. Cameo-sized appearances by Mackenzie Crook and Jason Flemyng are also effective, and watch out for a pre-Game of Thrones appearance by Rory McCann, aka The Hound.
Although made for a relatively tight budget on a swift schedule, every technical element sings. Dan Laustsen’s cinematography is gorgeous, whether it be the golden hues of an African throne room, the cold blue-whites of an English winter, or the muddy browns and rainy greys of later sections. I’m sure there’s a lot of digital grading involved in all this, but does it really matter how something was achieved when it’s achieved so well?
Full marks too for Ricky Eyre’s production design, David Baxa’s art direction and Lee Gordon’s set decoration. I don’t want this to read like the credits scroll, but the work done on the sets and locations is phenomenal and those responsible deserve the praise. Their work wouldn’t look out of place in something as crazily budgeted as The Hobbit — and hurrah to them for actually building it, whereas the majority of Jackson’s Middle-earth locales now seem to be CGI.
My praise also extends to those responsible for the film’s location shooting. Shot in the Czech Republic, for once that genuinely looks like Britain. OK, the style of some buildings give the game away occasionally (in particular the monastery), but until I read different, I just assumed the fields, forest and coastline had been found in our real South West, on the moors or what have you.
Further kudos to those responsible for the fight choreography (so good that even a deleted sequence (included on the Blu-ray) is better than many films can manage), for make-up, for creature design, for costumes, for the CGI… Rare is the element that lets this movie down. Indeed, my one real gripe is a final-act monster that seems to be beyond the scope of the filmmakers — between slightly jerky animation and a flatly limited choice of camera angles, it literally looks like a modern video game cutscene. Considering the excellent effects in the rest of the film (the opening sequence is a highlight in this regard, particularly the flaming sword that begins to melt Kane’s own), it’s a shame. That said, it’s not bad CGI, just not top-notch. If that’s the biggest complaint, there’s nothing to worry about.
Also, it’s permanently raining. Which looks great. Whoever was in charge of rain did a fab job.
At the end of the day, Solomon Kane is a period fantasy action-adventure, something which doesn’t seem to be everyone’s taste — it has relatively weak scores on the likes of IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes (though, in the context of how this kind of movie often performs in those arenas, they’re far from awful). For my money, however, it’s a great little film. It looks beautiful, it renders the tone of pulp fantasy brilliantly, its action sequences are exciting (so many swordfights! Heaven!) and its creepy bits unnerving. It may not be ‘trash’ elevated to art — it’s not a Tarantino movie — but it is pulp fiction treated with due reverence.
The UK TV premiere of Solomon Kane is on Film4 tonight at 9pm.
#25 
#29 The Sweeney (2012)
One of my all-time favourite movies. It should be laughably awful, really — not least the accents — and I’m sure to some people it is; but I think it’s immensely fun, and you can tell the setup is a good’un thanks to its legs: four sequels, a six-season TV series, a spin-off series, an animated series, an anime movie, and 
Top Gun
Little Shop of Horrors
For some people, whether Alien or Aliens is the better film is a huge debate. For others, there’s no question which is superior — and those people can be divided into those who think it’s Alien and those who think it’s Aliens. I lean more towards Ridley Scott’s original, but James Cameron’s sequel has its own merits — not least the fact that, instead of dully repeating the original, it shifts the franchise into a wholly different genre.
Crocodile Dundee
There’s a good handful of well-regarded films from 1986 that I’ve never seen (also, Howard the Duck), but this is the highest I’ve not seen on 
The director of Disney’s woeful 
The writer-director of 
What a nice tribute to his supportive parents and their devotion to one another, eh? At the start, perhaps, but by the end of the film you may be wondering what the writer-director’s subconscious wants to do to his ma and pa…
What could function well as an indie-level thriller is further undermined by abundant, therefore costly, CGI. Whether that’s Langella’s facial disfigurement (what could’ve been make-up is actually a complex array of tracking dots, green face-paint, motion-control cameras, and so on; all used merely to place him in simple dialogue scenes), or wide shots of ’70s Virginia, with a computer-adjusted skyline, computer-animated cars, and computer-painted snow. It’s not that the effects work is poor (though don’t look too closely at those cars), but that it screams “this must be special effects!” when you don’t want such distractions.
The Box should have been a film we all discussed for years to come, its “what would you do”-ness providing an 
The Desolation of Smowg-not-Smorg begins in the same way 
It’s my understanding that the originally-planned (and shot) two-part version of Jackson’s Hobbit adaptation was transformed into a trilogy by, essentially, taking what was to be film #2 and splitting it in half. That might explain why individual sections are allowed to go on so long here: to bulk up the running time to the kind of epic proportions audiences expect from a Middle-earth movie. Anything less than two-and-a-half hours isn’t going to cut it. But when your climax is a battle between a giant dragon (cool!) and a small army of dwarves (kick ass!) around a deserted underground city (hell yeah!), but my main thought afterwards is, “God that went on a bit”, then you’ve failed at something.
Meanwhile, Luke Evans’ Bard is as Welsh as the actor’s name suggests, which is a little bit of a surprise. But then the dwarves’ accents have all the rest of the UK covered, so why not. Benedict Cumberbatch sounds like Benedict Cumberbatch playing ‘big’ as Smowg-not-Smorg. It feels like this should be an iconic villain performance but, while good, I found it somehow lacking. Expectation may be scuppering him; maybe I’ll warm to it on future viewings.
I haven’t picked apart everything that’s wrong with the film (what purpose is there switching from one made-up-for-the-film orc general to another?!), but then nor have I praised everything that works (there are some quality actors in amongst all that crashing and banging). It seems a fair few people liked this Hobbit instalment more than the first; the best explanation I can find is, “because it’s got more action”. Far be it from me to accuse other film viewers of being shallow, but… really? I genuinely enjoyed An Unexpected Journey as a return to the beloved realms and peoples of Middle-earth. The Desolation of Smowg-not-Smaug has some of that, and the charm of introducing us to new parts of the world too, but it’s drowned out by so much aimless noise. Here’s hoping it improves with repeat viewings and/or the inevitable extended edition, because this time I nearly slipped down to a lowly 3 stars.
If someone you loved was locked up for decades for a crime you were sure they didn’t commit, how far would you go to get them out? That’s the premise of this methodical thriller from writer-director Paul Haggis (of 
with a protagonist who either already has a “particular set of skills” or implausibly learns them (maybe over a longer period of time) before putting in motion their crazy scheme.
Running him a close second is the all-action final half hour or so, when Crowe (spoilers! but not really!) finally stages the actual escape. It’s a long time coming, but we’re paid off with a pretty fantastic long-form action sequence. There’s genuine tension about whether they’ll pull it off or not, and along the way we’re treated to a few nice flourishes in his plan. There’s a fair degree of silliness still, though, so at least that’s in-keeping with the rest of the movie.
Finally, there’s an attempt to keep uncertain the truth about Banks’ culpability. Haggis never wanted that question to be answered — Crowe believes she’s innocent, even when she confesses to his face, and that’s what matters. I don’t think Haggis is a filmmaker who can resist answers, however, and for all his assertions that her innocence/guilt is left ambiguous, by the end I think you can be pretty darned certain which it is… which kinda makes all the previous attempts to leave it open feel hollow, especially the ones that side with the untrue.
Ambiguous endings used to be anathema to film audiences. They wanted things tied up in a pretty little bow, thank you very much; all the conflicts resolved and all their questions answered. Then the likes of 
In the Blu-ray’s special features, Boyle comments that “it’s more classical than you might expect.” He’s talking specifically about the cinematography (and he’s right, but more on that later), but he could equally be talking about the entire movie. Though it has a storyline that blurs the line between what’s actually happening and what’s happening inside a character’s head (or is that characters’ heads?), the overall tone and style — particularly of the climax — is actually quite Hollywood. It’s Hollywood jazzed up with storytelling trickery, a quirky score, dashes of extreme gore and surprising nudity (that it’s not an 18 is somewhat surprising); but underneath all that it’s not a million miles away from your run-of-the-mill thriller.
there’s no switching to black and white for dreams, for instance; nothing to definitively tell you which state you’re in. And this is a good thing, because when you need to know you can tell, and the rest of the time… well, the film’s playing with you. That’s the point. What is real and what is a scenario McAvoy’s being talked through? Are these memories what happened or the product of an addled mind?
Dod Mantle’s cinematography is also strikingly handsome. As noted, the film’s buzz had me expecting something akin to late-career Tony Scott, all jumpy and weirdly saturated and fragmented. Instead, as Boyle said, it’s actually very classical, but with a great eye. There are a number of shots which would look fabulous framed and hung on the wall, not least of the street outside Dawson’s flat at night, a restaurant next to intersecting train lines, and aerial photography of red-lit nighttime motorway junctions, looking like some kind of Rorschach test-esque psychiatrist’s tool.
Few would deny that Peter Jackson’s extended versions of 
There’s not as much extra time with the dwarves as I expected, though, with most of the character time still going to Bilbo.
having to work alone on a green screen for many of his scenes with the smaller characters), but newcomers Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and James Nesbitt shine too. This is Freeman’s film to be the centre of attention, but Armitage and Nesbitt will have much more to do in the follow-ups, and the groundwork is nicely laid here.
#13 Gravity (2013)
#18 Space Battleship Yamato (2010)
The recently-released inspiration for this list. An underrated series from the late ’00s, its creator and stars have tried to get a movie made ever since it was ditched. With traditional options failing, they famously turned to Kickstarter — and fans coughed up almost $6 million. Relatively strong limited-release box office and VOD chart positions suggest their wish for a sequel may be granted. Unlike:
The modern marker of true TV success — DVD sales (they also led to a return for series like Family Guy) — saw Joss Whedon’s short-lived, beloved space Western revived for a lap of honour. Sadly it struggled to find a big enough audience there either, dashing hopes of a sequel. But at least we got one movie. One big damn movie. One day, I’ll tell you all about how I think it’s better than Star Wars…
Sci-fi fandoms lend themselves to this kind of list. Now that it’s a massive multimedia franchise, spanning half a dozen long-running TV series and twice as many movies, it’s easy to forget the original Star Trek was cancelled after just three years. The post-Star Wars movie world saw it rescued for the big screen. A bit like what J.J. Abrams is doing now, one might argue.
The what now, you might ask? Police Squad lasted just six episodes in the early ’80s, but then they spun it off onto the big screen as The Naked Gun (hence that first film’s ludicrous subtitle) — which was obviously a success, because it spawned two sequels and people still go on about it. Apparently “many gags from the show were recycled for all three films,” which I guess is fair enough if no one watched your show.
Twin Peaks was a cultural phenomenon, and is widely attributed with revolutionising US network television thanks to its filmic style and long-running storylines. Too long-running, as it turned out, when audiences abandoned it after things got weird (the fact it was masterminded by David Lynch should’ve been a clue) and the driving mystery was kinda-solved. A prequel movie did little to clarify things. (Apparently. I’ve still only seen season one.)
Sure, the first X Files movie came mid-series, but the second was a considerable time after the show left our screens. And after the TV series ended on a cliffhanger, what better than to return to the big screen so you can tell… a completely standalone and unrelated story with a TV-friendly small scale. Oops. Hopes for a third movie that would deal with the hanging plot threads were basically killed right there.
So much more than one famous scene, On the Waterfront is a movie about a magic jacket, which causes anyone who owns it to stand up for what’s morally right even in the face of oppression, but also to suffer badly when they do.
The only potential downside to this comes if you dig behind the scenes. Kazan was one of those who testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities during its 1940s and ’50s witchhunt for Communists in Hollywood, naming eight men who were later blacklisted. If you consider the film to be Kazan’s answer to critics of his actions (as it “widely” is, according to Wikipedia), then presumably Brando is meant to be Kazan, calling out those who are doing ill to good hardworking Americans. But many a great film has been made with poor motive — just because Kazan thinks what Brando’s character does and what he did are the same thing doesn’t mean we have to. Even then, the issue of Kazan’s testimony is not so straightforward: a former Communist himself, he faced the end of his career if he didn’t testify, and the names he gave up were already known to the committee. The controversy dogged him for the rest of his career, though: when he received an honorary Oscar in 1999, several notable audience members refused to applaud.
While subtext is undoubtedly a meaningful thing, and using one situation to comment on another is a tried and true way of presenting an argument or criticism, I’m not a proponent of offhandedly dismissing work(s) just because we don’t agree with the actions or beliefs of the person who made it. On the Waterfront is a powerful film, exemplarily made by skilled craftsmen. Whatever Kazan was trying to atone for with its message about standing up to bullies in defence of what’s right, the sentiment is true. And you don’t need a magic coat to do it either.
100Films.co.uk 