Priest

Sci-Fi, Action
2 stars
Disappointing. Paul Bettany (Young Victoria, Legion, The Tourist, Da Vinci Code) stars as a “warrior priest” out to save his niece from vampires. The priests somehow possess special powers so they can fight like one-man-vampire-killing-machines. The whole thing was weird. The film takes place in a futuristic world, taken straight out of George Orwells’ 1984, complete with “Big Brother” watching everyone’s movements. Only in this world, instead of being ruled by a corrupt government, they are ruled by “The Church”, this concept taken straight out of The Golden Compass. Even though it’s in the future, the peasants wear medieval style clothes, except those living outside the city among the “Godless Heathens”, those folks dress like the Old West. The vampires look more like slimy monsters with just a mouth for a face, which I am sure I’ve seen in other movies, I think in I Am Number Four, among others. There are other beings called “the Familiars” who are people infected by the vampires, but resemble bald Goths, like from one of those old black and white Dracula films – these Goths can walk in the daylight and protect the vampires while they are sleeping. The leader of these Goths (Karl Urban from 2009’s Star Trek, The Bourne Supremacy) is an infected priest who now dresses like Clint Eastwood. So stupid. And they left it wide open for a sequel. Jim and I both like this genre, but we were both sadly disappointed in this film.