Priest (2011)

So much average

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

After learning of his daughter's abduction by a gang of vicious vampires, a priest defies the local clergy and sets out with several friends to stop her while also running across the slew of creatures attempting to enact the vampires' far more deadly plan in the process.For the most part, this one was far better than it had any right to be. One of the film's best features is its absolutely great pace for the most part here as it's basically like an Action film in how it plays out with all sorts of scenes featuring them out hunting in the wasteland hunting, stalking and combating all the various creatures. By basically engaging in fighting with the various vampires all the time all over the place, this makes for some good times in offering some exciting sequences from the first big brawl in the desert compound where the vampiric creatures begin crawling out of the underground pit and begin acrobatically jumping around to avoid the battle to a stellar confrontation in their underground hive with the monstrous pet creature along the pit where the two of them team up to bring the creature down. Other great action scenes, from the attack on the workers on the outskirts of town to the surprisingly fun rampage through town with a lot of fun attacks and battles going on off to the sidelines of the scene which lets this one get really exciting. That builds up into the finale on the train which gets really exciting here with the desert bike chases, the brawling on the train and all the different individual battles with the vampires left alive make for some frantic and rather exciting setups which end the film on a high-note. That these elements are so much a huge part of this one, along with the design of the creatures and a higher body count than expected which all boosted this considerably. While these make for a much-better-than-expected effort, it does have some big flaws since this started off on a sour note with the hampering rating and a far more vicious and brutal comic-book style animation than what would be shown in the movie proper to open the film. Beyond that, the film's biggest issue is that the vampire lead is pretty much non-existent and not much of a threat since this one deals more on them chasing him down so his plot is a little underdeveloped and really seems shoehorned into the proceedings to keep the film going despite being somewhat clever in concept. He's somewhat weak in general as there's not a whole lot of scenes here featuring him to get his plan out and there's just a few moments to really learn his powers so overall he rates pretty low overall here. The only other issue here is the rather blatant and obvious CGI that is featured throughout here, which really manages to stick out quite heavily with the creatures and the high-energy action scenes which all look quite symptomatic of the overly CGI make-up that's featured here. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot else wrong here.Rated PG-13: Violence and Language.

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.

A post-apocalyptic (huge destroyed skyscrapers, ravaged landscape) vampire steampunk Western (lot of dust, a sheriff, gunfights, a railroad, cowboy costumes...) with tattooed (a cross stamped on the forehead) fighting priests, crosses converted in shurikens, armed badass motorcycles, "Matrix" martial arts, pale bald jumping hive insect-like organized bloodsuckers and, off course, a lot of CGI and slow motion. It looks like a mess, doesn't it? Well, it is... The story is simplistic and not innovative at all: there was a lasting war between vampires and priests (yes, they are "padres", not werewolves) and, after human victory, the church enclosed their warrior clerics inside its walls. As the niece of a padre was kidnapped by surviving vampires, he decided to break his vows and go there to save her. Then, he achieved enemies from both the vampire community and the church. He got the help of a sheriff (who looks like a young inexperienced sidekick) and teaches him how to kill vampires, but their relationship is a little troubled (you have already watched this story, haven't you?). In spite of all this criticism, the film is not bad.. but do not expect a nice vampire film, or a nice Western, or a nice post-apocalyptic movie.

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.