Priest (**)
Directed by: Scott Stewart
Starring: Paul Bettany, Karl Urban, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q, Lily
Collins, Christopher Plummer, Brad Dourif, Alan Dale, Madchen Amick, Stephen
Moyer
Seen: May 25th 2011
** Out of ****
In a bleak futuristic world there are two species, humans and
vampires. Vampires are feral and far more powerful than humans, and for this
reason the humans created the order of the Priests for protection. Fierce warriors
with the Cross tattooed on their foreheads, they are widely feared, humans who
can fight well enough to defeat multiple vampires. They wear Friar Tuck outfits
and hunt vampires – in the entertaining animated opening sequence this is
relayed, with the vampires’ annihilation and the imprisonment of the remainder told
of. A quick scene shows a group of priests entering the vampire stronghold Mira
Sola, and they are overwhelmed, one of their ilk dragged back into the colony
while the others, led by Priest (Bettany) helplessly look on. The church here,
much like the church of the middle ages, “protects” the people, but after a
certain time of quiet they seem to forget of the scourge and disband the
priests, abandoning them to solitary lives of being shunned for their
capabilities. Eventually the church refuses to acknowledge the existence of the
threat outside their secure city walls – only secure because of the hundreds of
miles of empty barren desert surrounding the cities that vampires would not be
able to cross because of sunlight.
Priest receives news from a young sheriff, Hicks (Gigandet), that his
niece Lucy (Collins) has been kidnapped by vampires, and the two set off across
the wastelands towards the small town where Priest’s brother (Moyer) lay
mortally wounded, to try and save the girl. They run across a small vampire
colony, by day only visibly inhabited by familiars, creepy humans who have
submitted themselves as slaves to the vampires, but this is only a small hiccup
for them. Meanwhile the church has disavowed Priest for going on this mission,
sending four other priests after him, one of them named simply Priestess
(Maggie Q). In the hunt, three of the priests are brutally massacred by
something the priests have not come across before, Black Hat (Urban), who has a
motive for going after Priest’s family. With Black Hat marshalling a seemingly
invincible force of vampires to the big city, Priest, Priestess and Hicks catch
up with them, and battle ensues.
Priest is at points impressive, but the suspension of disbelief mechanism
is often relied on too heavily. The movie is a throwback to old-school over-the-top
action where no attention is given to physics, and all attention to attempts at
looking cool. The actors are merely jackets worn by generic characters, and it occasionally
strikes me as funny that actors are all right with being portrayed as they are.
The movie is a meagre 87 minutes long, and in that runtime you realise that
what happens in the movie is only a beginning, a prologue to an actual and much
bigger story. I am getting tired of this trend from movies, books, TV series,
etc. The trend that makes writers think they can stretch a story across
multiple books or movies to make more money – only to have them end up with a
sub-par or decidedly average first movie unlikely to receive a sequel because
of its lukewarm reception. I say tell the whole story, make the movie
immersive, an experience, not just a lame introduction to something unlikely to
ever see the light of day. Priest is like that, a short movie short on story
and short on potential for a decently made sequel because of this inherent flaw,
it will soon fade into oblivion.
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