James Purefoy, most fondly remembered as the Prince who gave Heath Ledger a second chance to joust in Knights Tale and as Marc Anthony in HBO's Rome, takes on a lead role here inspired by the Wierd Tales series of stories by Robert E Howard.
Basically the tale follows the life of a former mercenary of the Queen, who once realises his soul is damned, turns to a life of a puritan. But where would be the fun in that? Evil befalls a family who had taken him into their fold, and he now uses his 'killer skill' to battle Satan's forces himself to save the young child of that family , hoping to be absolved of his sins and be saved from Hell (i know i'm rambling here , but sounds familiar to anyone? Constantine? no? well maybe just me).
While the story is predictable to much of an extent, but Purefoy's acting is what saves this from being purely a mystical action ride. He gives much credibility to the role, and with solid assistance from Max Von Sydow(The Exorcist, Dune, Minority Report etc), Pete Postlethwaite (Last of The Mohicans, Usual Suspects*, The Constant Gardener etc) and Mackenzie Crook(Pirates Trilogy - yeah, the one with the wooden ball for an eye), manages to pull it off.
I liked it, even though it was predictable. I wonder if it will go ahead as planed to finish of as a trilogy. Who knows? Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 87%.
* - as Mr Kobayashi, Keyzer Soze's right hand man. AWESOME!
verdict : coin well spent, but hope if it is indeed a trilogy, the second and third part better not be as predictable
No comments:
Post a Comment