A scene from ‘Solomon Kane’

An ambitious $80-M feature film, “Solomon Kane” promises to be an action packed epic following the steps of “Van Helsing” and “Underworld.” In the movie, we meet Captain Solomon Kane (Purefoy) as a brutally efficient 16th Century killing machine. In an attempt to keep from going to hell, Kane begins his quest for redemption by renouncing violence and living a life of peace and purity.

Below the movie’s director Michael J. Bassett and actor James Purefoy talk about the film.

Q: How does it feel to finally have “Solomon Kane” done and to start showing it off to people at Comic-Con?

Michael J. Bassett: As a geek and a fan myself, this is the best way to do it, to do it at Comic-Con. You follow stuff and I follow stuff online. Every year you read what happens at Comic-Con and you look forward to the movies. Just to be on the inside of that and to join something like that is just a fantastic way of doing it.

James Purefoy: This is extraordinary being here. Because the fan base is so passionate and they believe in all they’re doing here, it’s so exciting to be here. What I love about it is that it’s the uncool, in a way, because people don’t care how ridiculous they look. They love it.

Who is “Solomon Kane” to you?

Purefoy: I thought he was a really three-dimensional character, for a start. It seemed to me that this is a very different kind of movie. Michael had written a script where everything mattered to everybody in it. (Kane’s) kind of cool despite himself. He’s not cool because he tries to be. He doesn’t have any kind of quick answer to anything. He’s not ironic. There’s no pat comments. There’s not much humor in it, but what happens is that everything matters a great deal to him. He starts off as a very avaricious, greedy man [bu becomes] a very redemptive character.

Bassett: He’s got a Batman vibe about him. Without superpowers but this unbelievable, ferocious conviction that he’s able to do the things he says he does. When Kane says he’s going to do this thing, you damn well know he’s going to do it by hook or by crook. The suffering and brutality I submit Kane to is pretty bleak stuff. I wanted to make a serious-minded movie. This is not glib, it’s not ironic. It’s a classical movie, which I haven’t seen in a long time. Ridley Scott and those commercial filmmakers from the ’80s were my visual influence as well.

How do you find the humanity in this kind of dour character?

Purefoy: He’s many layered, you know? Just because he doesn’t crack jokes – I think there’s maybe one smile in the movie.

Bassett: When you cast somebody you look for that inherent humanity in them as well. That’s what James puts in it. No matter how dour the lines are there’s something else going on there as well. So there’s not a love interest, but there’s a family aspect to it. It’s the only moment of happiness that he finds in this story is joining this family. He has a bad family history. He’s seen all these bad things. He carries this enormous skill with him of knowing how to kill. The question of the movie is, can you kill and still be good? Can you kill for right reasons? At the end of the movie, Kane comes to a conclusion about that, which allows us to go and do movie two and three... if this lot like it.