Priest is the latest adaptation of a Graphic Novel to the big screen. I never read the Graphic Novel, but from what I understand it has a strong cult following. If this movie is any indication of the book, then I won’t be reading it anytime soon.
Priest is a collection of action movie stereotypes all rolled up into one unsatisfying mess. Think Blade Runner meets Road Warrior meets Blade with a heavy layering of the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns and you have what they tried to do in Priest. Instead of coming up with a plot greater than the sum of it’s parts, you get an uninspired dilution of action classics. Paul Bettany brings his usual class with a surprisingly respectable action performance to the title role of Priest.
For Sci-Fi or Super Hero fans, the plot is promising. After a global war between humans and vampires which humans barely won, mankind lives in a post apocalyptic world where the Church has unquestioned authority over the remaining cities. The Warrior Priests, who turned the tide of the war, are now obsolete and live in obscurity amongst the downtrodden people. They struggle to fit into a world where civilization is only a shadow of what it was. Their cool cross tattoos on their face forever mark them as outcasts.
When Priest’s niece is kidnapped by what appears to be a vampire attack in the wastelands, Priest breaks his sacred vows and leaves the walled city to venture out into the wastelands in an obsessive quest to save his niece before she is turned. Little does he know that the head vampire he is after is a former warrior priest himself (Karl Urban doing his best Clint Eastwood impression). Priest is accompanied by a young wasteland Sheriff, who is Priest’s niece’s boyfriend (Cam Gigandet, who is incredibly clean cut for someone living in the wastelands). The two set off to follow the trail of the rogue vampires.
The Church elders, disapproving of Priest breaking his vows, reinstate the other Priests to go after him. Needing some eye candy in an otherwise bleak looking film, Maggie Q provides it in the form of the leader of the group. Her name is Priestess. If his name is Priest and her name is Priestess, I’m not sure what they called all the other priests in the group. The two most obvious names are already taken. The director seemed to go to great lengths to try and explain the age difference between Priest and Priestess (while also throwing in the fact that the super model is a virgin in her early 30’s), but I found it unnecessary and forced as I never even noticed a difference until it was pointed out. The requisite sexual tension is forced and heavy handed. She did have some cool fight scenes though. It’s amazing how tough a 90lb model can be.
Karl Urban (who approached genius with his take on Dr McCoy in Star Trek) is wasted in this film. He channels an evil Clint Eastwood and cycles through every bad guy cliché in the book. I wish the movie would have explored some type of inner conflict or other dimension than just ‘stoic evil guy’. He was Priest’s comrade in arms until he fell to the vampires during the war. Great actor in a sub-par movie.
I spent a lot of the movie marveling how they never ran out of clichés to recycle. One after another until it almost became enjoyable just spotting the clichés. I know the movie was trying to stay faithful to the novel, but the vampires were like no vampires I’ve ever seen. They seemed straight off the cover of Fangora magazine (Is that still around?). Poor CGI added to my disappointment.
I think comic books have overcome their previous bad reputation with almost every modern blockbuster being based on some sort of graphic novel. Priest drags the genre down and hearkens back to the age when comic book movies were shoddy and dismissable. I would have been mad that I spent money on this if I hadn’t gotten in on a Free Pass. Still, it was 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back.
I rate this film: * star
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