Review of Priest (2011) by The D — 29 Jul 2013

(2.5/10).

Priest is the unofficial, but almost equally as bad, sequel to Legion from 2010. It is by the same director and a very similar cast. It also has the same visual style, horrible dialogue, hilarious acting, wasteland setting and bad CGI.

Priest stars Paul Bettany as a famous vampire hunter without a name (the credits list him as "Priest"). Priests use to be the main vampire killing force in this world, but now all the vampires are gone so he just kinda hangs out doing nothing. Well, until his friend (played by Karl Urban) is attacked and killed by a group of vampires in some random cave they were in for no reason. He tries to explain to the church that vampires are back, but they don't believe him. He also learns that his niece (Lily Collins) has been abducted by a pack of vampires and that it's up to him to save her. He goes out on his own and disobeys the church, so the exile him from the city. Along the way, he teams up with the worst actor in the movie (Cam Gigandet). He is also surprised to find out that the new leader of the vampires is his friend Karl Urban, who for some reason is now called Black Hat. Could he have his niece? Most likely, seeing as how these types of movies go.

This movie attempts to mix a lot of genres into one movie, and I can admire it for trying, but that's where the biggest problem with the movie lies. The movie is unsuccessful at doing so, so it just comes across as a giant mess. It tries to mix sci-fi, action, horror and western all together, but the only thing that comes out is a bland, boring, in-cohesive mess.

Not only is the movie a total mess, the dialogue and acting is horrendous. The only thing that keeps the movie watchable is a few cool vampire killings and a relatively sleek visual style (in the same vein as Legion). Paul Bettany and Karl Urban are phoning it in and they look bored, Lily Collins is more annoying than anything and Cam Gigandet is just all around atrocious. He essentially equals his performance in The Roommate. Christopher Plummer also makes an appearance, but he is completely wasted as the head of the church.

The creature CGI isn't that great, but it' a definite step up from Legion. Besides the creature CGI, the movie is fairly visually appealing and has a brooding atmosphere inside the city that's paired with the desolate wasteland setting of the desert.

Overall, the only redeeming quality of this film is the visual style and a few cool vampire killings. Everything else falls flat on it's face and is really really bad. Hey, at least the director is improving on his previous effort: Legion. God I hate Legion.