PRIEST – The Review

I have to say, when I saw the trailer for this film, I was less than whelmed. Now that I have seen it, I can safely say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,

PRIEST is the tale of war between man and vampires, based off of the comic series by Hyung Min-woo. An army of warrior, or fighter priests were mans greatest defense against the vampires, but once they were defeated (or so they thought), man cast them aside. After centuries of war, the thought-to-be defeated vampires have returned, with a much stonger leader. Not only have they come back, but they have stolen Priests’ (Paul Bettany) niece Lucy (Lily Collins). Despite the church denying that the vampires were back, or forbidding Priest to go and search for Lucy, he can’t turn his back on her and rebels. He is joined by Lucy’s sheriff boyfriend (Cam Gigandet) and a priestess (Maggie Q) that he once fought alongside. Their journey takes them all throughout their post-apocalyptic world in search of Lily.

Ok, so back to what I said at the beginning. The film was not as bad as the trailer lead me to believe it would be. I can safely say that I was entertained throughout the film. I can also say, that it still wasn’t great. I am actually kind of indifferent to it. The good and bad moments kind of cancelled each other out.

Let’s start with the good. The visuals in the film were beautifully done. Between the visuals and the costumes/props, the film was truly stunning. Paul Bettany’s portrayal of Priest was great. I truly can’t complain about the guys acting ability, or agility. Same with Maqqie Q. I really want to see more of her on the big screen. I think that she has a wide range of talent that we have yet to see. Don’t get me wrong, I love her in action films! I would just like to see her cast in some other roles too. The girl is not only talented, but she is also extremely nice. Karl Urban plays a great villain. There is something very mysterious about him that he can easily transfer over to a character. Also, the three pulled off some beautiful action sequences. All three actors are strong when it comes to action scenes, and it is displayed eloquently in this film.

Now it’s time for the bad. Despite Bettany and Q’s acting skills, which are above paar, this script could not be saved. They had a decent plot line, and plenty of background to make this story better. It wasn’t just the story either. Normally I can tell the difference between bad writing and bad acting, but not in Cam Gigandet’s case. I liked him in BURLESQUE, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a great actor. Not only did his character have the cheesiest lines in the film, but his delivery was terrible. It was painful to watch.

They had had a great storyline going with the internal struggles of Priest, and even Priestess, but they had to muddy all of that up with the worst vampires that I have ever seen on screen (Not including Urban as Black Hat, he was deemed worthy)! Basically, it’s as if one of the zombie’s/creature’s from I AM LEGEND and Pale Man from PAN’S LABYRINTH “got together” and created this dreadful idea of a vampire. Here, I made a visual aid to help the process along…

See, now we are on the same page! There weren’t even vampires in the comic series! They should have stuck to the internal struggles, and human villains. I would have gladly taken the TWILIGHT vampires over these knock-offs. Heck, Gigandet shouldn’t have switched sides. He could have reprised his role as Jame’s from TWILIGHT in this and not only would the vampires have been an improvement, but maybe it would have helped his line delivery too!

Bottom line, the action in this film is neat, the scenery is lovely, but based on everything I was left feeling very “middle of the road” with this one.

OVERALL RATING: 2.5 out of 5 star