Since the last Vampire war, the legendary warrior Priest (Paul Bettany) has not been of use to the inhabitants of a walled –in civilization, ruled by the church. When his niece (Lily Collins) is abducted by a pack of vampires, he informs the church that the blood sucking monsters have returned. The church tells him that the vampires have been eradicated and that the remaining ones are locked up tight in a holding facility. Believing that the church is wrong, and that somehow the vampires are have started to attack again, he breaks his vows and ventures out on a quest to find his niece before they turn her into one of them. Joining him on his journey is his niece’s boyfriend, Hicks (Cam Gigandet) a young gun totting Sheriff. Once the church discovers that the Priest has gone after the vampires, they call on four other previous priests to go and retrieve him.
The Priest will have at least one of the other priests on his side, a warrior Priestess (Maggie Q) who has feelings for him. Leading the pack of vampires is a vampire half-breed known only as Black Hat (Karl Urban), who has a vendetta against the priest and is bent on getting his revenge. Will the priest be able to stop the new threat of vampires before they reach the confines of the walled-in civilization? Can the priest save his niece before Black Hat turns her into a vampire?
Now this is Paul Bettany’s second religion based character he’s played in the past two years. He previously was in “Legion†last year which I also reviewed. This time around instead of being an angel, he’s a priest, with both characters having exceptional fighting skills. At first when I saw the trailer for this movie, I thought that somehow it was an extension of the first movie, but it wasn’t. This was a completely different story altogether. The action in this movie was pretty cool. A lot of slow-mo action sequences added to the effect of the battles. It was also filmed in 3D, but the technology wasn’t necessary, and didn’t add any extra excitement to the action. The story was cool, priest fighting their oldest enemies, vampires through the orders of the church. What I found strange about the movie was that the civilization that was protected by the church behind an enclosed wall was so much more advanced in technology compared to the people who lived outside the walls in the wasteland, who lived life, like in the old Wild West. Plus the fact that the two would interact with one another, so that basically if you lived within the walls of protection, you had to do as the church ordered, but if you lived outside of the walls, your choices were that of your own.
Some of that could be said of today’s civilization. The effects in this movie were really good; I enjoyed the way they represented the look of the vampires, being without eyes. I felt the main villain could have been a little better, being that he was a half-breed who possessed great strength. This movie wasn’t as good as previous movies that had futuristic type battles with vampires, but it seems like it will have a continuation, so maybe it’ll get better in the next one. I gave this film 1 ¾ crosses out of 4. It just wasn’t that exciting. The film ran 1 hour and 27mins. It was rated PG -13 for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and brief strong violence. The film was written by Cory Goodman and Min-Hoo Hyung. It was directed by Scott Charles Stewart. It was produced by Michael De Luca Productions, Stars Road Entertainment, Tokyopop. The movie was distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing.
Don’t be a bloodsucker; you won’t make many friends that way. Ezo
Next movie reviewed: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
