Priest is a pretty exciting and entertaining movie. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, where history is one of a constant war between humans and vampires, the main character is a member of an order of clergymen who are the main weapon of humanity against the vampires. The Church is the highest authority of the humans, who have battled with vampires for what seems like decades. The Priests were the decisive weapon in the victory over vampires, and after winning the war and imprisoning the last remaining vampires, the Church disbanded the Priests, and left them to fend for themselves in a society where they have no real skills.
The future world is depicted as dingy, crowded cities like the ones in Blade Runner, set in a desert wasteland like Mad Max. The social order in the cities is regimented in an Orwellian fashion, with slogans and pictures of the Monsignor everywhere. The church is obviously modelled upon the Catholic religion, but is respectful of the actual religion, using it as a fictional vehicle without making fun of its practices. The movie is filmed in almost black and white with very subdued colors, a lot like the recent Sucker Punch, but with better effect.
The main character is called Priest, one of the best of his kind, and is played by Paul Bettany, who is possibly best known for being the albino in The DaVinci Code, and the Angel Michael in the movie Legion . During the vampire wars, a group of Priests enters a vampire hive, and is ambushed. Most of the Priests escape, but one, played by Karl Urban, is captured by the vampires. Karl Urban was Dr. McCoy in the Star Trek movie, and will be again in the upcoming sequel. Anyway, Priest was holding onto him when his grip slipped and he was pulled away. He comes back as the villain called Black Hat, and kidnaps Priests niece in order to get his revenge over being lost to the vampires.
As an adaptation of a graphic novel, the characters and story are very comic book-like. The Priests have super-human abilities which make them very good at what they do. The villains of the are also not your customary vampires. The are like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, rather than the Dracula of the classics. They are susceptible to sunlight, but don't turn into bats. They don't have eyes, either, but they do have some very mean fangs. They reproduce by a queen, like insects, rather than the vampires of legend which rise 3 days after being bitten by another vampire.
The Church has decided that it is better to forget about vampires. The head of the Church, the Monsignor Orelas, played by the venerable Christopher Plummer, is determined to forget about the wars with vampires and keep the people in the fold of his church, and safe within the cities. He forbids Priest from going after his niece, but of course Priest rebels and forsakes his vows. Monsignor then dispatches four other Priests, including Priestess, played by Maggie Q, to stop him. Maggie Q was in Live Free and Die Hard, and also Mission Impossible III. Accompanied by the wildlands sheriff Hicks, played by Cam Gigandet, who played in the sci-fi thriller Pandorum, Priest and Priestess try to take on Black Hat and the hordes of new vampires determined to exterminate the humans.
Priest is the best movie of the week, in the week before the latest Pirates of the Carribean, and the week after Thor. It is a nice diversion, not excessively gory, and a satisfying ending, which leaves plenty of loose ends to be resolved in a future sequel, if enough people get out to see this one. I do believe it to be worth seeing, and worth a sequel, so go! This one gets 4 Shurikens for good plot, good story, decent acting and plenty of action.
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