Priest

Just looking at the trailer for Priest, it's obvious that so many things can go wrong very easily. You have a setting that looks like an Orwellian Blade Runner meets V for Vendetta knockoff ruled by the militant Christianity, specifically the brach of Christianity that believes in cramming every Christian cliche into one dogma. The plot seems pulled straight out of a silver age comic book: neo-priests in the future expertly trained for combat do battle with deadly vampires. Basically think a reverse Daybreakers with a hint of Judge Dredd thrown in. In other words, it's obvious what kind of movie Priest is striving to be: a sleek fusion of high-concept sci-fi and over-the-top action. So the most important question then is whether it delivers on either end.

The answer is a frustrating maybe. The movie begins with some shoddy motion comic style animation set to bland narration about the vampire uprising and the priests who kept it in check. Then we see our two main characters, cowboy archetype and lapsed priest archetype, set out on a mission to rescue a loved one from the vampires. This earns the disdain of the church, which calls out a hunt on lapsed priest archetype for disobeying them. As a general rule, audiences won't sympathize with a character for losing faith if it happens in the first ten minutes and they never see him having it in the first place. On the other hand, it's probably best that a movie like Priest shakes such details aside to get the plot moving.

What ensues is the two protagonists' journey into lawless, vampire-infested wild west themed wastelands. In other words, it's an excuse to have our heroes talk tough and kick ass, and they do both often enough to at least keep things from getting boring. The fight scenes themselves are satisfying. They're fast-paced, full of style and cool visuals, but never so elaborately fancy that they look like video game cutscenes. To its credit, the movie uses darkness well to build a satisfying atmosphere, reminding me of a poor man's Pitch Black. The constant comparisons Priest draws to better movies are probably the best evidence of how much it gets half-right.

The action escalates when another priest tracks down our heroes but soon comes to see things their way. Seriously, for battle-hardened warriors sworn to duty and dogma, these people have the most fickle convictions. But again, at least this movie makes it easy to sweep plot aside. Entering act 3 their mission becomes to square off against the vampire menace that's gathering numbers in preparation for a big attack.

The acting is consistently serviceable, with everyone doing justice to their basic parts. There are a few scenes of genuine drama, but in general, the parts between action scenes are mostly filler. The movie's biggest saving grace in this respect is that action scenes come often enough.

If you're in the market for something not too different form a poor man's Equilibrium, this is the movie for you. It's unapologetically cheesy and derivative but has a strong imagination and manages to get the basics right.

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