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Priest
| Released |
6 May 2011 |
| Director |
Scott Stewart |
Starring
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Paul Bettany, Karl Urban, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q, Lily Collins, Brad Dourif, Stephen Moyer, Christopher Plummer |
| Writer(s) |
Cory Goodman |
Producer(s)
|
Sam Raimi, Mitchell Peck, Joshua Donen, Michael DeLuca |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
88 minutes |
| Genre |
Action, horror |
| Rating |
15A |
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Disorganised religion.
Haters of angsty teen vampires rejoice! Priest is here to redress the balance with its slavering, feral beasts who exist only to tear humans to shreds and excrete unspeakable substances. Not for them the expensive wardrobes and extravagant mansions of so much vampire fiction; these guys don’t even have eyes! Impressively disgusting as they are, what Priest gains in bloody mayhem, it loses in narrative clarity. The vampires of Priest work on instinct rather than intelligence, more animal than man. Yet they manage to mobilise themselves to warfare and fall in line under fallen Priest/vampire hybrid Black Hat (Karl Urban)...Are they his slaves or his comrades? Do they understand English? And more crucially, am I looking into this a little too much? Well, yes. As soon as you start asking any questions about this film it quickly falls apart but I suppose it’s a little unfair to ask depth from a puddle.
Based on a series of Korean comics (there is some nicely animated exposition to start), Priest is set in a world where man is in a constant battle against vampires and a Big Brother style Catholic Church (led by Christopher Plummer) holds sway over every aspect of society. To tackle the threat, the Church train a league of warrior priests who can garrotte a vampire with a set of rosary beads. Having all but won the war against the vampires, the league has been disbanded; but when his niece is kidnapped during a vamp attack, the titular Priest (Paul Bettany) comes out of retirement.
So begins a chase that is heavy on crucifix weaponry but low on common sense. Bettany has an inscrutable air that suits the part very well and he brings a nice intensity to the role of the action hero but sidekicks Cam Gigandet and Maggie Q are disposable at best. The aesthetic is more interesting, falling somewhere between Blade Runner and Deadwood- a huge dystopian city surrounded by small country settlements whose residents still wear stetsons and petticoats. It’s strange but rather stylish. A shame then that the 3D effects make dark sequences (anything in the vampires’ caves or the city) almost impossible to make out.
I can’t see Priest being of much interest to anyone other than fans of the comic book- for the regular punter it’s not nearly as fun as it looks. Yet the open ending already sets up a sequel. It won’t be on my “to see” list.
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Linda O’Brien |
