Sean’s movie thoughts

 The 2009 film Solomon Kane stars Robert E Howard's puritan adventurer and perhaps most popular character after Conan. James Purefoy stars. This is not an adaptation of a Howard story. This is good. The action scenes are good, I like sword fights in films. There is a grim amostsphere to the film. Kane is trying to be a man of peace and he feels he is damned. He meets a family and is forced to fight after the family is attacked. Witchcraft and sorcery exists.  Purefoy is good as Kane, both before and after he takes a vow of nonviolence. He does get a one-liner but it is not delivered in a quippy way.  I had not seen this in a few years. I think it holds up. 

Terrence Howard and Dolph Lundgren star in this film. Howard plays a man who owns a one screen movie palace. People are pressuring him to sell. (I am not sure why Howard's character dresses like a cowboy. I like the fact that no one asks him about that.) Lundgren plays a faded action hero and idol of Howard's. During an appearance by Lundgren's character at the Grand, Howard and Lundgren have to defend the theater. They use props from Lundgren's old films.  Okay, it is possible that this sounds like a bad movie to you. Oh well, not every film is for everyone. I am not saying Lundgren should do Shakespeare but I liked a lot of his films over the years. I like Terrence Howard in this. There are scenes from some of Lundgren's character's old films. These are fun. I am not sure I want to see any more of these films within a film than we get here. This is not a great film but there is a charm to it. I think I will watch this again.

Kenneth Branagh returns as detective Hercle Poirot in this movie. I like him as this character and I think he has gotten better in each film. I think he might have been a bit too mannered in the Murder on the Orient Express. Michele Yeoh is a psychic and Tina Fey is on hand as a mystery novelist who made Poirot famous. Poirot thinks the psychic stuff is fake and perhaps some of it is fake. He is having visions though. Yeoh and Fey are good in their roles, although I think Fey's character is usually depicted as older and a bit of a spoof on Agatha Christie. Of course it might be that I had an audiobook where an older sounding actress played the character. https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/haunting-in-venice-a  I feel this is a fair review. This is said to be more loosely based on writer Agatha Christie's work than the previous two films in this series. This is said to be inspired by a novel called Halloween Party.

 Alain Moussi and Frank Grillo star in this movie about assassins hired to kill another assassin. There are, of course, surprises along the way. The contract becomes, or is revealed as, a contest. This was fun. I think it was worth buying. I like Moussi, so I felt good about buying it. Maybe the last Kickboxer was more fun than this. This is a direct to DVD movie. If you expect this film to match the spectacle of a James Bond or Mission Impossible film, that would be wrong. If the sequel tease bothers you, well I might not agree but I get it. I dislike the opening of the film a bit. It throws you into the action and then there's a flashback to one year earlier. I might rewatch this.