This week I will be covering "Priest", the most recent graphic novel to make it to the big screen. It seemed like until now most of these graphic novel movies have been pretty good, with the exception of The Spirit, which just plain sucked. Following such big sellers like Watchman, Sin City, 300, and of course my personal favorite, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Priest is hard to judge as a good or bad graphic novel movie because I never read it. These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.
To avoid confusion, the main character of Priest is portrayed by Paul Bettany (Legion). I say "avoid confusion" because all of the men in the order are in fact Priests and thus have no other names. Opposite him is Maggie Q (hottie, Balls of Fury), a Priestess who is in love with Bettany, but can't act on her emotions. Karl Urban (better known as Dr. Bones from the Star Trek reboot) plays the once Priest turned vampire known only as "Black Hat". Lastly I want to mention Lily Collins (hottie, The Blind Side) as Priests niece and her whining boyfriend played by Cam Gigandet (Easy A) who you don't even see together until the last 5 minutes of the movie.
The movie starts out kind of quick, I call it "the rush job". The plot of the movie is explained with some rough animations about the humans and vampires age old battle for dominance and ends with us winning, but not without the help of the Catholic church (It never states its the Catholic church, but its pretty obvious). What is left of civilization is kept on a short leash by "the church" and are held up in a barricaded mega city (Catholic wet dream). There is a vampire attack on a farm in the Wastelands and Priests' niece is taken captive by Black Hat. Gigandet enlists the help of Priest to rescue her and the plot pretty much follows the "I need to get my daughter back" storyline. Wait!! "I thought you said 'niece' a minute ago?" Well boys and girls, it looks like Priest had a little fun before he was taken by the order and the oops baby was left with his brother to be raised. Aside from the gnarly facial tattoos, blind vampires and super God ninja powers, there wasn't a whole lot to the movie.
The graphics were pretty good with all things considered, showing how all of the Priests were faster and more agile than the other humans were average at best (simple slow motion techniques). I do have to give the CGI team props for coming up with a very generic version of vampire. All of them looked exactly the same, white skin, skinny bodies, and no eyes ("The eyes are the window to the soul, if they have no eyes, then they don't have souls" as put by Urban). Urban being the first "human vampire" he could be out in the sun and talk (although it was pretty bad dialogue).
I give this movie a decent 2.5 on the Willis scale mostly because it was enjoyable. No rush should be taken to see this movie if you are expecting an epic journey of the human spirit. They conclude the movie with the ever so popular sequel promise ending (but unless it rakes in a few more hundred million box office, we wont see one). This is becoming an empty promise and a risky move by some directors. I personally hate it when movies end with the obvious cliff hanger and fail to deliver a second installment. Eragon (a movie about dragons adapted from a book series) and earlier this year "I am Number Four" didn't seem to do well enough to warrant a sequel, but desperately needs one.
