Movie Review: Priest

In the future where humans and vampires are perpetually in a collision path, the church devises a mechanism to fight the vampire menace. They train warriors as priests and unleash on the vampires. As a result, the vampires are vanquished now and the remaining vampires are kept in reservations while the humans evacuate to cities that are walled fortresses. They are a few humans who live outside the city in what is known as wastelands. After the vampire war is over, the priests are reintegrated into the human society where they have difficulty in finding acceptance among the fellow humans. The Priest(Paul Bettany) lives such a life constantly fighting his doubts and nightmares resulting from the war.

In the wastelands, Owen and his wife are attacked by vampires. Owen’s wife is killed and his daughter Lucy abducted. Owen is Priest’s brother. Following the attack, Sheriff Hicks informs this incident to Priest. Priest asks Monsignor Orelas(Christopher Plummer) for reinstatement and permission to find the truth behind this bizarre attack . Orelas do not believe in a vampire menace anymore. When he is refused permission, Priest defies the church and escapes out of the city. He reaches wastelands before his brother’s death. There, Priest enlists Hicks to find Lucy. Offended by Priest’s insubordination, Orelas orders Priestess(Maggie Q) to hunt down Priest. How Priest, Priestess and Hicks save Lucy from the hands of Black Hat(Karl Urban) forms the rest of the story.

Scott Stewart directs this action movie which is based on a Korean comic book. He provides insight into the backgrounds of his chief protagonists thereby elevating them slightly from the one-dimensional characters found in action movies. Since the focus never wavers from the search, it never becomes tedious for the viewer.

The entire movie revolves around Paul Bettany who acts as the title character. Although he acts well, this role has a lot of shades of his previous roles. Nevertheless, he makes the viewer connect to his emotions.

Save it for the DVD. The 3D effects are not spectacular to watch this in a theater.

Language: English

Genre: Action

Rating: ***

Tags: Movies,Paul Bettany,Christopher Plummer,Maggie Q,Karl Urban,Scott Stewart,Action