The last time Scott Stewart and Paul Bettany teamed up it resulted in the dire apocalyptic action thriller Legion, so going into Priest confidence levels weren’t high and expectations were of a low standard. Was this going to be a Legion re-hash or a breath of fresh air in the action genre?
Priest, based on the Korean comic, is set in a futuristic world where humans and vampires have been at war for years, only for the humans to suffice and rid the world of all vampires, or so it seems. In the war a group of individuals with extraordinary abilities were called upon to protect helpless humans, these were called the Priests. Hired by the Church, the Priests possessed such unique combatant skills that they were able to match the superiority of the vampires and fight back, eventually leading to their demise.
Following the successful human victory at the Vampire Wars, the Priests were disbanded and now live among normal people and are seen as outcasts. Unfortunately the vampire menace has not been fully banished and following an attack on his family, Priest (Paul Bettany) is called back into action to save his nice who has been captured by an unknown vampire.
Seeking the Church’s acceptance that he return to being a warrior of God, Priest is immediately denied but ignores this denial and heads off to find his niece and bring down the vampire menace for good, along with the help of a local Sheriff (Cam Gigandet). Following his betrayal of the Church, Priest finds himself also hunted in the form of his previous partners in the wars, the other Priests, including a close female (Maggie Q).
The root of evil and captor of Priest’s niece is Black Hat (Karl Urban), a former Priest who has been turned into a one-of-a-kind being, a human vampire. He now controls the other vampires and soon Priest and his accomplice find themselves in a battle to the death to try and rescue Lily before it is too late...
What you see is what you get with Priest, a simple actioner that doesn’t mess around with the fine details of characterisation and explanation, it simply goes for action value and this is what lets the film down. Little insight into the characters immediately has you caring very little for our characters and it just seems as if the film is focused solely on action and little else. Okay yes it is a bit of a guilty pleasure watching vampires getting their butts kicked by some bad-ass priests but more back story and less leaping through the air and slaying wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Film rating: 2 out of 5 stars
The Lowdown: Priest is a half-decent action pleaser but with little development in terms of character and story Scott Stewart still hasn’t nailed it after his dismal Legion. Also another 3d conversion gone bad, not worth the extra money by a long shot.
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