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Paul
Bettany trained for
eight months to be
physically ready to
play the lead role
in
Priest.
Sadly for Bettany,
it was a wasted
eight months because
even though the
action scenes look
decent enough…
Priest
is terrible. The
script is awful, the
dialogue inside of
the script is awful,
the direction has
its moments… but the
most part it’s awful
too. Priest isn’t
the worst movie I’ve
ever seen, but
instead something
with potential turns
into something that
was a waste of time.
Priest
makes
Blade
3
look like the best
vampire movie ever
made… and that’s
sad. You could sub
the Priest character
with Halle Berry as
Catwoman and it
would make about as
much sense.
Since the beginning
of history man and
vampires have been
at war for control
of the planet. The
vampires had all but
won when man
retreated behind the
walls of the church.
Inside of the walls
of the church, man
made the weapon that
won them the war.
The priests. The
priests were vampire
killing masters,
they were experts at
what they did and
they had perfected
it. With the priests
on their side man
won the war. They
put vampires on
reservations and
though the world had
largely been
destroyed, they were
working on a new
civilization with
the church in
control. As for the
priests, they were
no longer needed so
they were forced to
try to adapt to be
normal citizens.
Eventually our main
character- we’ll
simply call him
Priest (Bettany)
hears about his
niece being
kidnapped by
vampires and his
family being
attacked. He’s
forced to go into
action and whip some
vampire ass. Sounds
entertaining right?
It totally does, but
somewhere along the
line, the dialogue
gets overly stale
and the direction
just seems
unoriginal.
Paul
Bettany isn’t even
good in
Priest
and he’s good in
everything. In all
fairness to Bettany,
he’s not given a lot
to work with the
script. Karl Urban’s
good in almost
everything anymore
too and he’s
terrible here as
well. Cam Gigandet
fits in here
perfectly because
he’s terrible. The
acting isn’t the
main problem though,
it’s just the
overall product…
it’s a mess. The
direction is
completely
unmotivated and
looks like a
collection of sci-fi
action flicks that
have been made over
the years. That goes
for set design all
the way to camera
work. The whole
thing just feels
unmotivated from
start to finish.
The only good thing
I can say about
Priest is that the
CG effects and the
effects in general
look great. The
action sequences are
all pretty cool and
the fighting scenes
are at the very
least entertaining.
As
far as the Blu-ray
of this goes, it’s a
Sony release so of
course it looks and
sounds great. Even
the extras are
decent and
worthwhile here.
There’s a picture in
picture viewing
option that’s fun to
watch and then there
are a couple of
features on the
creation of the
movie with sets and
weapons and that
type of thing. The
only down part of
the extras? Director
Scott Charles
Stewart actually
wears the
stereotypical
director hat. I had
huge hopes for him
after Legion, but
after watching
Priest, I’m a tad
disappointed. Watch
the extras and
you’ll completely
understand why
Priest
isn’t as good as it
should have been.
Priest
could
have been better if
it were made five
years ago. Instead
we’re over saturated
with vampire crap as
it is so when
something unoriginal
comes along with
vampires well… it
doesn’t stand a
chance. This graphic
novel deserved
better than this
movie.
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