By Nigel Powlson

BEFORE he created Conan the Barbarian Robert E Howard tested out the plot on Solomon Kane. Instead of the steppes, we have Somerset; instead of animal skins we have black hats, instead of paganism we have Christianity.

Otherwise it's the same tale of a cast out child who grows up to seek revenge for an act of violence by a brutal nemesis.

Conan the Barbarian has become Solomon the Puritan, with Arnold Schwarzenegger's muscles and Austrian mauling of the English language replaced by the rather more gently-muscled James Purefoy, with a West Country brogue (a sort of Conan the cider drinker).

After refusing to join the clergy, young Solomon is banished from the family castle by his overbearing father (Max Von Sydow), accidentally chucking his brat of an elder brother over a cliff on his departure. Fast forward to 1600 and Solomon is now Captain Kane, seafarer, brigand and plunderer of foreign treasure. But when the Devil's reaper comes to collect his evil soul Solomon repents and heads for a monastery to find God. God doesn't really fancy him so he's sent to find redemption back in Somerset, running into a Puritan family led by a saintly Pete Postlethwaite who offers him kindness and thrusts his daughter (Rachel Hurd-Wood) Solomon's way. But when this happy and godly band comes across a sorcerer with despotic ambitions, Kane's new found turn-the-cheek attitudes are violently tested.

Why anyone would want to dust down this 82-year-old relic and give it the Hollywood treatment is anyone's guess but Deathwatch director Michael J Bassett approaches the material as if Peter Jackson had handed him the keys to Middle Earth. So expect lots of slow motion brutality in the mud, overlaid with a pulsating score, directed with a sense of brio. The dialogue is stilted and the plot is well, Conan the Tractor Driver but, despite having seemingly little going for it, this is a surprisingly enjoyable romp. Eat your heart out Arnie!

SOLOMON KANE

CERTIFICATE: 15

RUNNING TIME: 104 mins

STARTS: Today at the Show- case, Odeon,Cinema De Lux in Derby; Cineworld in Burton.

RATING: 3/5