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Too much of the 'finds purpose - loses purpose' cycle

posted 11 years ago by matt-baen
3 replies | jump to latest

Green Lantern's momentum was killed by adding a 'hero resists the call' beat right out of the generic monomyth playbook.

Solomon Kane has its protagonist swing back and forth from finding his purpose to losing his purpose.

purpose: kill and loot;, loses purpose: targeted by Satan's reaper
purpose: chill at monastery; loses purpose: kicked out
purpose: be saved and claim inheritance; loses purpose: kills and be damned
purpose: Find girl; loses purpose: thinks girl is dead (based on report of one guy)
lost purpose: girl dead -> drunk & crucified; finds purpose: girl is still alive
Additional purpose: lead siege to defeat Malachi (resists but comes around)
Additional purpose: reuniting family he hated; new purpose: kill family
Final purpose: fight evil in general

The whole thing feel like a hero 'resists the call' in an act 2. Over and over again he says "no" to various calls to find his destiny, join travelers, fight bad guys, lead a war but then ends up belatedly doing it, usually after moping and being ambivalent.

Similarities to other franchises:

I don't know anything about Howard's Kane, but:

- repentant warlord/brigand like Xena and The Shadow
- looks like Hugh Jack in Van Helsing
- generic medieval cosplay black leather bad guys even though it's the Seventeenth Century
- saves soul by offering to be damned in order to save soul of young woman (Constantine, Dante's Inferno based on videogame)

However, despite all that, it was pretty OK with some nice moments. 6/10.

[–] Ingram_1 11 years ago

Exactly. Astute breakdown. You hit the nail on the head. The whole narrative was laden with stop-and-go, stop-and-go, stop-and-go ...leaving the character himself all over the place while, in a sense, not doing much of anything that felt singular or substantial. As for the source material, Kane (not Conan) was actually my introduction to Robert E. Howard, and I can tell you that in this film we only get fleeting glimpses of the man; all of this nonsense about begging, not killing and moping around in defeat is NOT the true Solomon Kane. Rather than plainly bad, I’d more accurately say the film was frustrating. It showed promise here and there and James Purefoy was superbly cast.

The whole set piece where Kane happens upon a ramshackle church with a twisted priest housing demon souls was, by itself, borderline brilliant and utterly faithful in tone and premise to the short-story narrative drive of Howard’s pulps.

[–] matt-baen 11 years ago

I agree about the effectiveness of the church basement sequence (despite my lack of familiarity with Kane).

The filmmakers were trying to make a origin story like Batman Begins but unlike the protagonist in that Kane keeps being buffeted around by happenstance without a clear sense of what he wants to do or who he wants to be.

[–] Taranaichsaurus 11 years ago

I'll help you out:

- repentant warlord/brigand like Xena and The Shadow

Not in Howard. The film's entire justification for this element is a single paragraph in "The Blue Flame of Vengeance":

Aye, I led a rout of ungodly men, to my shame be it said, though the cause was a just one. In the sack of that town you name, many foul deeds were done under the cloak of the cause and my heart was sickened – oh, well – many a tide has flowed under the bridge since then, and I have drowned some red memories in the sea…

Of course, to interpret this passage as "I was an evil man back then" instead of "a lot of people did evil things under my watch and it sickened me" would mean ignoring other evidence in the stories, such as "Red Shadows":

All his life he had roamed about the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, he neither knew nor questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life. Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and lasting, through his soul. When the full flame of his hatred was wakened and loosed, there was no rest for him until his vengeance had been fulfilled to the uttermost. If he thought of it at all, he considered himself a fulfiller of God’s judgment, a vessel of wrath to be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous.

How could he not know or question why he spent all his life roaming the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, if this film spells out exactly why he did that?

- looks like Hugh Jack in Van Helsing

In Howard, and since Solomon Kane first appeared in 1928, this is a case of Van Helsing ripping REH off. That said, REH's Kane was a bit different, since he had a green sash, not a red one, and he wore a slouch hat rather than the classic pilgrim hat.

- generic medieval cosplay black leather bad guys even though it's the Seventeenth Century

Not in Howard. REH was very mindful of historical accuracy, so his European bad guys looked like bad guys from the seventeenth century.

- saves soul by offering to be damned in order to save soul of young woman (Constantine, Dante's Inferno based on videogame)

Again, not in REH.