Priest (2011)

Too much of everything

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

In a dystopian future devastated by the war between humans and vampires, people live in walled cities controlled by the Church. Warrior priests are no longer necessary because vampires no longer pose a serious threat to civilization, but when a priest's niece is abducted by a resistant group of vampires, he calls into question his vows and philosophy of life.This premise seems to establish a more psychological and philosophical dimension to the film, but it is just that, a premise, because from here the priest leaves in pursuit of his niece, joins with her boyfriend and some other warrior priestess and it is only action and fx thereafter. And vampires are gray monsters without eyes and those who look like human vampires are just the servants. The film lasts an hour and a half, but it would benefit from another half hour to better establish the universe and the characters. Well, it served to entertain...

I saw this at the theater when it was released theatrically and I have been a fan ever since. I actually have grown more fond of this film with repeated viewings. Anyways, Priest is a very enjoyable and slick looking comic book styled action/fantasy movie that is a futuristic sci fi vampire western. Combining elements from Blade, Star Wars and the classic western, Priest is awesome and such delivers big time in the butt kicking department. This is set in a futuristic parallel universe where humans and vampires are engaged in an eternal war and battle for domination. In this retro futuristic society, the church runs the show and as such religion, government and industry are one. The vampires are faster and more agile then humans and humanity's only advantage is the sun. They are blind, insect like monsters that are vicious cgi critters that the priests must fight off with their special vatican style of kung fu. Priests are highly skilled holy warriors, similar to jedi knights, except their power comes not from the force, but the big man upstairs. This is done pretty well and the acting and storytelling are solid. Paul Bettany was excellent as the lead here, his delivery on his character is heavily influenced by Clint Eastwood and he pulls it off quite well without it coming off forced or cheesy. Bettany does well as action hero and is accompanied by Maggie Q, Christopher Plummer and Karl Urban as villain. As a whole I found this quite enjoyable and even though I much favor practical f/x, this is a total cgi fest. Even with that as a factor, the film comes off as a pretty fresh take on the vampire genre with great action and is well executed overall. Even though this is a PG 13 action film, the film is pretty violent considering and is much darker in tone than most PG 13 fare. Although, Priest plays as pretty unique it is not afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve and if you are a fan of westerns, Blade and Star Wars, Priest is the movie for for you and in my opinion Priest is much better than the Star Wars prequels.

Hard to be original when vampires are involved. And if you really really want to do a mashup of Blade and Riddick via Mad Max, you should take all the good parts from those movies, not just the desert, the ridiculous breaking of the laws of physics and the angry masculine looks.I suppose someone had dreams of turning this into a franchise, made the film, paid the cast a lot of money (just read it, it's filled with good actors), then realized that the script was so bland as to be sleep inducing. The marketing for the movie sucked as well. I know that I've heard of Priest before it was made, but then nothing. I just remembered it from a random comment of a friend, otherwise I wouldn't have known that it existed. And the comment was about a scene that wasn't even as my friend thought it was (the remote confession in the video booth).Bottom line: A vampire queen transforming one of her greatest enemies into a hybrid in order to ensure her survival and eventual victory over the humans was a very good idea. However, the film involved only ridiculous fighting scenes from people that do not evolve in any way, thus do not excite the viewer in any way. And the only difference between Priests and Blade is that they don't have sex. And they are all white, Asian or latino :)

After a centuries old conflict between Mankind and Vampires humanity have finally defeated the blood suckers primarily through the " Priests " super soldiers with exceptional fighting skills . The surviving vampires have been made to live on reservations . A renegade bunch of vampires have fled their reservation and have kidnapped the niece of a former Priest What is it with Hollywood ? They show they can come up with the occasional great idea in a stale formula even though they can't develop the great idea to its utmost potential . DAYBREAKERS would b an example of this - what happens when Vampires become the dominant race on Earth and can't continue the species down to there not being enough human blood ? It was a film of two definite halves and with PRIEST we get something similar except for one important difference and that is the first fifteen minutes are very good and the next hour and a quarter is very mediocre In this alternative world the Catholic church rules and people live in a civilisation run across theocratic lines ,in much the same way as Orwell's Big Brother has now been replaced by the Pope . This is a fascinating concept and really drew me in to the film and I wanted to learn so much about this world . For some unknown reason the film then takes a massive jump in to being a cross genre featuring the Western and horror all done in a completely generic style .The cinematography is of course a sort of dull blueish tone in keeping with recent horror and fantasy films and half the time it's so poorly lit you can't see what's happening . The bits I could make out seemed to involve CGI monsters getting shot . A bit of talking , a bit of shooting and repeat every five minutes till you're bored senseless I don't think I've seen a film in recent years where the set up has been so impressive and then everything sinks so quickly . The ideas presented are good and there's plenty of scope for characterisation especially the former Priest played by Paul Bettany who finds his faith long having deserted him but it quickly becomes clear that this strange world and the backstory around it merely exist in order to set up some uninspired fight scenes you've probably seen done better in computer games . A major disappointment to put it mildly