Priest (2011)

I saw this at the theater when it was released theatrically and I have been a fan ever since. I actually have grown more fond of this film with repeated viewings. Anyways, Priest is a very enjoyable and slick looking comic book styled action/fantasy movie that is a futuristic sci fi vampire western. Combining elements from Blade, Star Wars and the classic western, Priest is awesome and such delivers big time in the butt kicking department. This is set in a futuristic parallel universe where humans and vampires are engaged in an eternal war and battle for domination. In this retro futuristic society, the church runs the show and as such religion, government and industry are one. The vampires are faster and more agile then humans and humanity's only advantage is the sun. They are blind, insect like monsters that are vicious cgi critters that the priests must fight off with their special vatican style of kung fu. Priests are highly skilled holy warriors, similar to jedi knights, except their power comes not from the force, but the big man upstairs. This is done pretty well and the acting and storytelling are solid. Paul Bettany was excellent as the lead here, his delivery on his character is heavily influenced by Clint Eastwood and he pulls it off quite well without it coming off forced or cheesy. Bettany does well as action hero and is accompanied by Maggie Q, Christopher Plummer and Karl Urban as villain. As a whole I found this quite enjoyable and even though I much favor practical f/x, this is a total cgi fest. Even with that as a factor, the film comes off as a pretty fresh take on the vampire genre with great action and is well executed overall. Even though this is a PG 13 action film, the film is pretty violent considering and is much darker in tone than most PG 13 fare. Although, Priest plays as pretty unique it is not afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve and if you are a fan of westerns, Blade and Star Wars, Priest is the movie for for you and in my opinion Priest is much better than the Star Wars prequels.

Bearable Action Scenes with absolutely NO story at all.the Bike is one such challenge to be built, with Turbine beneath the Seatthe beginning plot and opening background build up sets high hopes but turns out exactly the opposite. the Movie falls off even before it could even gain some momentum.History of the Comic strip made me watch it, and with such a story, I can only imagine what the Comic series goes all about.Lead Cast is fine, only if he had chosen a better movie to play to Lead than this.

One self-righteous reviewer - like so many wannabe experts wrote: "the hypocritical "holier-than-thou" attitude of modern Christians and their single minded belief that they remain "saved from evil" as long as they worship God" Oh spare us the hypocrisy please! This is the kind of dullard comment clueless atheists and self-righteous pseudo intellectuals come up with.People with their mind on hold and the politically correct but utterly inane drone opinions on modern Christians, which this dolt probably doesn't know anything at all about except what his priest Dawkins told him to believe. Religious satire is fine but this oh so typical parroting verbatim of dingbat militant TV evangelist atheists like Dawkins et al. is hardly movie review material. Just ignoramus tripe. Sick of seeing this kind of rotting baloney being thrown at people dolts like this don't understand at all.Take a good long look in a mirror sometime kid, wake up and smell your own holier than thou self-righteous diatribe. You review reeks of it.

Set some where in what appears is a post apocalyptic future after a war between vampires and humans has ended in an apparent victory for the humans through the use of a vampire fighting sect of the church called Priests. Once victory seems achieved the Priests are no longer needed and are discarded, placed in very menial jobs if they can find anything at all. Just like the history of the Catholic church of our world. One surviving Priest disobeys the edicts of the church when his brother and his wife are slaughtered in a vampire raid and his niece, oops his daughter, is stolen. She is stolen to do just what has occurred. Turns out a Priest has been turned by a queen vampire. Another Priestess joins him and stops a train full of vampires and larvae(?) by blowing it off the tracks. This wipes out the vampire threat for now. In the end, while the church hierarchy ignores the threat, the remaining Priests get the word out and are to meet at a certain point. Will there be a sequel, I hope so.