May 11: Priest

"A priest disobeys church law to track down the vampires who kidnapped his daughter."

Paul Bettany needs to stop making movies. He's an amazing actor that can't choose a good role. Sure, he was great in A Knight's Tale, Gangster No. 1, Master and Commander, and A Beautiful Mind. But, it was somewhere after The Da Vinci Code that Bettany decided to turn his career to shit with Legion, then Priest. I'm thinking God is playing a rather mean trick on Bettany and by divine intervention only allowing him to play some sort of a religious character in horrible movies. First there was the flood, then the plagues of locusts, and now the last five years of a talented man's career. It's such a shame, but who am I to argue with The Man Upstairs?

Sorry, Woman* Upstairs. 

In another world, priests and vampires have waged war for centuries. After the world is destroyed and left in ruin, the only sanctuaries for humans to live are in giant walled cities controlled by The Church. Priests, who were once respected as the saviors to humanity, have now been disbanded, as The Church fears the priests have become too powerful. The few remaining priests live day-to-day, blending into society as best they can. When Paul Bettany's character (also named Priest), finds out his niece has been kidnapped by vampires, he comes out of hiding and leaves the city. Fearing Priest will start a new war with the vampires, The Church calls upon other priests to chase down Priest and bring him back to the city, including a mysterious man called Black Hat (Karl Urban). Or something like that. The plot has a few badass moments, but the execution of an otherwise original story is plain out awful.

Although Black Hat is awesome. I'd watch a movie about him. 

Priest suffers from a bad case of everything. The script is laughable and every utterance of dialogue can be dismissed with a "heh". The acting clearly suffers from this as well and turns the film into a mess. Its only redeeming factors are the special effects and stunt work, and you pray to God each scene with "story" is interrupted by the ass-kicking priests fighting blood sucking monsters. Scott Charles Stewart, the director, can film an action sequence well, but his work with actors leaves much to be desired. Hell, the entire movie is based off a graphic novel series. With so much source material, Priest should be much, much better than it is but something went terribly wrong in the transition from comic glory to the silver screen. 

Hello, badass man of God. I apologize for your film adaptation. 

Overall, I don't know if I can recommend Priest. It's a film, when looked at on paper sounds amazing, but when actually finished, is just too hard to watch. At first I thought it could be a fun, campy ride through a deserted wasteland with priests and vampires, but when the script spirals into a terrible abyss, it's hard to ignore it. The premise is original and has so much potential to be great and it's sad to see that Priest is far from amazing. 

The Good:

a really original, badass idea with great action sequences 

The Bad:

poor, poor execution of the badass idea

The Ugly:

a script written with no respect to the source material, little effort, and shallow characters

Overall: 4.6/10

Trailer: