The world that Priest inhabits is a familiar landscape. There's a lot of sand and barren landscape. There's nothing really new in these parts of the film. However, one area that I was impressed with was the overall design of the last remaining human cities. The cityscape is littered with monitors, speakers, and the Church motto: unity through faith or something like that. On another positive note the costumes are somewhat interesting as well as the final set piece that takes place on a moving train. All these things help "Priest", but there are just too many "wrongs" to overcome the few "rights".
The story is predictable and lack luster. This is a classic tale we have seen many times before. A man with no name goes out against the wishes of some sort of authority, whether it be police, society, or the Catholic church, determined to find his relative's captors and return the captive to her loved ones, even if that means sacrificing his morals and possibly his beliefs in the process. I feel like this story was created from a blank "Mad Libs" page, where the writer just filled in his ideal fantasy of everything he wanted in a movie; insert vampires, the old west, religious overtones, and kung fu.
Priest's character is a man of little dialogue, but so is this script. The story is entirely plot driven and uninspired. Bettany's character has a few dry "one liners" that are good for a few laughs here and there, but ultimately fail to live up to classic action stars such as Governator and Sly. Bettany does a decent job of portraying the nameless antagonist, but doesn't really have to flex his acting muscles to get the job done. Maggie Q also makes an appearance in the film as a fellow priest, ordered by the church to pursue Bettany and bring him in dead or alive. Hints of her love and a possible relationship are thrown into the film to spice up the secondary plots, but not a lot of screen time is given to develop this story line and give it some real weight. The most forgettable character in the film is Hicks, played by Cam Gigandet. Hick's character is about as useless as the barren wasteland he travels through with Priest on their journey to obtain the kidnapped, Lucy Pace. I think most of the problem with Cam's character is not his acting, but due to a poorly written script. The only character that I feel shines in this vampire romp is Karl Urban. Urban plays the first and only "human vampire" in the film and was trained to be superhuman priest like Bettany. Urban is hellbent on revenge against the church that left him to die so many years ago. Urban has some great psychotic scenes including: one where he conducts a symphony while destroying another human outpost with his new vampire comrads. He's creepy, cold, and perhaps the only redeemable aspect of this film.
In the end a predictable story, uninteresting characters, and poorly written script couldn't save this one from ending up in the 5$ bin at Walmart a year from now. I left the theatre pretty disappointed, and found myself laughing when I should have been moved emotionally. Granted "Priest" is supposed to be a silly summer action flick, but it can't even deliver on that promise. My advice, catch this one on netflix instant watch. I'm giving it 2 wooden stakes out of 5
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