Priest (2011)
Certified: 14
Duration: 87 minutes
Directed by: Scott Stewart
Starring: Paul Bettany, Karl Urban, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q, Lily Collins, Stephen Moyer, Christopher Plummer, Brad Dourif
KRS release
Priest is an unsuccessful adaptation of the Korean comic book by Min-Woo Hyung. On screen Scott Stewart’s film comes out looking less like an homage but more of a hasty combination of themes and sequences from a diverse set of films such as the classic Western The Searchers (1956), the cityscapes of Bladerunner (1982), the action sequences of The Matrix (1999) among others.
Priest takes viewers to an apocalyptic future dominated by the Church where the faithful queue up to confess in electronic confessionals and stop to pray at prescribed times.
The world has been through a terrible war between the Church and the vampires. The infected ones live in reservations in the heathen wastelands outside Cathedral City. The priests, who had been instrumental in the Church’s victory, are the warriors of the Church.
After many years, the Church’s leader, Monsignor Orelas (Christopher Plummer), believes that the vampire threat is over and that these priests are no longer needed.
Meanwhile, in the wastelands Black Hat (Karl Urban), a former priest-turned-vampire, is on the warpath. He travels to a ramshackle town where he kidnaps a teenager called Lucy (Lily Collins). His aim is to lure one of the remaining priests (Paul Bettany) into the wastelands. Lucy is his illegitimate daughter even though she does not know this. Also involved is a young sheriff of the wastelands called Hicks (Cam Gigandet) who loves Lucy. The Church meanwhile dispatches a group of priests led by Priestess (Maggie Q) to hunt them down.
The film is very much in line with many other sci-fi horror actioners like Underworld (2003), Resident Evil (2002) and Doomsday (2008). These elements, coupled with the apocalyptic religious aspect, have already been explored by the director in his much more successful Legion, also starring Paul Bettany. The film as a whole borrows heavily from the imagery of the Judge Dredd comic books.
Paul Bettany is likable as the grim-jawed Clint Eastwood-type hero but his character is never really fleshed out. Mr Plummer is simply inane as the Monsignor and I believe that he misses the days of the Von Trapp family. Maggie Q shows some nice moves especially in the way she disposes of some futuristic motorcyclists and rips their collective behinds. Cam Gigandet seems not sure he is in the right movie.
Visually, the film offers some minor delights such as the train carrying the vampire threat, the mass control exercised by the Church through electronic means, priests with crosses tattooed on their faces fighting it out against vampires and the visions of nitro-fuelled motorbike lawmen riding in an apocalyptic landscape. These are not exploited well by the direction and are wasted as simple eye candy. One sequence which really works is where the Priest and the Sheriff enter into a vampire reservation. It’s a sequence that delivers in the action stakes and also in the attitude that it brings. The CGI creatures are adequate but there is nothing that has not been seen in recent video games.
Sporting all the classic western themes of justice, revenge, chase, kidnapping, right and wrong all encapsulated in a brooding atmosphere, Priest aspires to Sergio Leone qualities but it never comes near to achieving them.