Priest review

Synopsis
In an apocalyptic future, mankind and vampires were at war. In the war’s aftermath, most of mankind live in giant cities ruled by the church and vampires live in reservations far outside the cities. When one priest’s (Paul Bettany) niece (Lily Collins) gets kidnapped by a group of vampires in the wastelands, he goes against the church’s orders and leaves the city in search of her.

Review
Good action mixed with a good story and good characters can make for great movies. As for Priest, it only has one of those two things. Unfortunately, good action cannot carry a movie alone. The world it creates is an interesting one. It has futuristic elements inside its sprawling cities, western elements in the wastelands, and fantasy elements with the vampires. I rather enjoyed this unique blend because it gave the film its own look and feel. The look overall was hyper-stylized, not as much as something like 300 but similar to maybe Underworld. Given this movie is a loose adaptation of a Korean comic series of the same name by Hyung Min-woo, the style fits in and helps remind you of its roots, like in 300.

Now as I said in the beginning, Priest is a pure action flick. The characters aren’t deep and the story is straightforward and simple. It tries to throw a twist of sorts towards the end but it isn’t anything too dramatic. Paul Bettany as the titular Priest isn’t bad but he isn’t great either. Kind of a middle-of-the-road sort of performance. Maggie Q isn’t given much room to shine as the pretty-much-required love interest that this type of movie has. The best performance comes from Karl Urban as the villain Black Hat. He looked to be one the only one who was actually enjoying his role.

I thought Priest was OK 😐 I like a good popcorn flick as much as the next guy but there wasn’t a lot here to really enjoy. The action is good but it is nothing not seen elsewhere. Thin characters and bare-bones story drag down what the action manages to accomplish. Not the worst movie out there but there are decidingly better options.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Scott Stewart – Director
Cory Goodman – Writer
Christopher Young – Composer
Andrew Spence – Co-Composer

Paul Bettany – Priest
Karl Urban – Black Hat
Cam Gigandet – Hicks
Maggie Q – Priestess
Lilly Collins – Lucy Pace
Stephen Moyer – Owen Pace
Christopher Plumber – Monsignor Orelas