Priest (2011)

I'll tell you why so serious

Best movie ever!

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I think Paul Bettany does well in solo hero movies but this time around, I felt they could have made him the vampire here and it probably would have clicked better than it actually did. The "soldier vampires" here look very evil and also there's a particular scene where they attack a family that live in isolation at an outpost - probably the scariest scene in the movie. Everything else about the movie didn't really hold my attention as most of the battles between the priests and the vampires seemed too rely too much on effects or were too illogical. Paul Bettany and Karl Urban do well but one wishes their action sequences had more punch - their final confrontation scenes were average. Cam Gigandet is more or less wasted in his role as a sheriff and Maggie Q(who shined in Die Hard 4) also gets a forgettable character here. Brad Dourif as a untrustworthy salesman is the only performance worth any mention here, although his role is short. Verdict - an OK vampire movie with at least some jumpy moments but not enough to make it a good horror fest. I wonder now why all these popular stars signed up for this.

Priest is one of those flashy missed opportunities, a visually stimulating comic book flick that just couldn't amp the substance metre up enough til it's flush with style, and ultimately feels somewhat hollow. It's still a gorgeous Blu Ray that will give your system a workout though, with some neat vampires and a great cast. Sometime in a murky post apocalyptic future, humanity lives in a giant gloomy city on the edge of oblivion, walled in for fear of vampires who have preyed upon them in the past. An order of warrior priests protects citizens and keeps order, until one rogue from their sect (Paul Bettany) discovers that the creatures may be back when an outsider couple (Stephen Moyer and Madchen Amick) have their daughter (Lily Collins) kidnapped from their desert dwelling outside the city. They come to Bettany for help, but the leader of his priesthood (a smug Christopher Plummer) is an obstinate son of a bitch and refuses to act. Bettany goes renegade along with Priestess (Maggie Q) and ventures into the wasteland to rescue Collins and fight these baddies. It's frustrating because the look and design of this world is brilliant, like a dark opulent jewel that clearly has some thought put into it. But then... the dialogue and story are so numbingly pedestrian, straying not a kilometer into uncharted narrative waters to give us something even a little bit exciting or unpredictable. Quality jumps with Karl Urban's dapper villain Black Hat, a vampire cowboy outlaw who oddly resembles what I'd imagine Stephen King's Roland Deschain would look like if the powers that be took their heads out of their ass and recasted Idris Elba. But I digress. Like I said, terrific cast; Brad Dourif has a great cameo as a snide hustler peddling trinkets to superstitious townsfolk, and watch for the great Alan Dale too. Bettany always makes for a solid action hero, he just has a bit of trouble finding the right projects (have you seen that turd Legion? Good lord) that deserve bis talents. This one falls just short. It could have really used a few rounds of defibrillation from another screenwriter, and perhaps a hard R rating to take advantage of the horror aspects. Still, the vampires are creepy enough (echoes of Blade II are always welcome), the actors keep it going and there's no shortage of style.

(24%) A rather flat mix of both sci-fi and future western wrapped around a plot so thin and weak it makes rice paper look obese. Thankfully though it isn't overstuffed to make it 2 + hours long which would have made it unbearable to watch - which is at the very least something. Bettany's character is way too bland to warrant any movie based on him as he bores from scene to scene, and the fact that he's almost impossible to beat in a fight means that there's absolutely no tension or excitement to the action. So as a simple by-the-numbers time-passer this is just about acceptable, but it's far from a must watch Blade killer or anything special.

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