Movie Review: Priest

So I went into the cinema with low expectations mainly because I didn’t expect much after watching the trailer for Priest and I wasn’t impressed. And I was right.

Priest tells the story about a priest (Paul Bettany) in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world that sets out on a journey to rescue his niece who was abducted by vampires. The Church, unhappy with his intentions sends out some priests after him to bring him back. And let’s not forget the mysterious villain, the man in the hat who looks a lot like Hugh Jackman.

A typical story that’s been done quite a number of times, except this time it’s set in an interesting location. One of the strongest points about the movie is the whole post-apocalyptic setting and the Church – it’s not a totally fresh idea, but it certainly is a nice breather from all the typical vampire movies we’ve seen recently. Speaking of vampires, these creatures aren’t your regular humans with fangs either, they look more like aliens from space than anything, which is good and bad. People aren’t used to vampires being like that, which probably makes it hard to accept, while it makes the movie stand out from other vampire films.

The protagonist, Priest, was unlikeable. He wasn’t interesting, and besides his ability to kick ass, there was really nothing going for him. His sidekick, Hicks (Cam Gigandet) was even more interesting than him. But all in all, the actors were probably the worst part of the movie. A lackluster performance from most pretty much everyone who wasn’t a vampire.

To sum it all up, Priest isn’t a very good movie. But it isn’t terrible either. It probably could’ve been a better movie if they had better actors or a more captivating script. Props to the crew for coming up with an interesting setting and creating a new style of vampires. Definitely not a movie I would watch twice, but if there was a sequel I might give it a shot. The animated introduction was probably the best part of the film. Priest gets 5/10.