I know that the 2011 movie Priest is based upon a Korean graphic novel, however I’m pretty sure the movie only exists because at some point, some dude sitting in mass looked at all the religious iconography around him—the different interpretations of crosses and crucifixes, rosaries—and thought, “Man, those would make great ninja weapons.” A couple shots of Jagermeister later and vampires were thrown into the mix, and we have a movie. Seriously, watch this movie and tell me that’s not how the creative process worked.
Priest stars Paul Bettany as a, well, priest—a specialized assassin—who leaves the safety of his megalopolis and travels the wastelands to rescue his niece from a band of vampires that has kidnapped her. Along for the ride is a small-town sheriff named Hicks (the ludicrously-named Cam Giganet), and a former (and very foxy) comrade-in-arms (Maggie Q., who, if you are reading this, I could make you very, very happy…just think about it). The three travel through a pseudo-Old West type landscape in a half-assed homage to The Searchers before confronting a larger enemy with a larger plan that threatens all of humanity.
Yeah, this should be a lot more interesting than it actually is. But Priest manages to be so relentlessly disposable, it makes even the possible extermination of humanity seem low-stakes (ha! See what I did there?)
See, in Priest, we deal with an alternate history, in which humanity and vampires have been locked in continuous warfare for centuries. After laying waste to much of the Earth, humanity finally found hope in a cadre of assassin-ninja priests (and while we’re at it, tell me Assassin Ninja-Priest wouldn’t have been an awesome name for this film?) Well, the priests mowed down the vampires by the scores, and finally beat them into submission. The vampires are warehoused on reservations (allegory alert!!!), while most of humanity lives in massive walled cities that look like the city-planners in Blade Runner looked at 2019 LA and thought, “Good…not crowded enough, though. And not churchy enough either.”
The overriding civic authority in Priest comes from The Church (I dunno which one…a Christian one, that’s all the movie makes clear), which rules every aspect of daily life in the dystopian cities. Citizens cram into automated confessionals, which play generic video recordings of the dictatorial Monsignor (Christopher Plummer) telling them to work hard and be productive. Loudspeakers remind the rabble that “to go against the church is to go against God.” Most edifices have massive neon crucifixes or prayers on them. It’s a lot how I imagine the US would be under a Huckabee Presidency.
(I am well-versed in the art of sensual massage, Maggie. Just sayin…)
Yet, after setting all that up, Priest (*sigh* I know, but it’s how Bettany is credited), leaves the city and it’s million possible stories for the far less interesting frontier. I mean, we’ve seen this new Old West routine plenty of times already, and Priest brings nothing new to the table. In fact, it’s a lot more slapdash than most. I mean, if the ground is so irradiated that nothing can grow, what are these settlers eating? I don’t know, and the filmmakers don’t seem to care.
(I notice that sometimes you wear glasses. I will never tease you for you glasses. Just the opposite, actually.)
Likewise, they don’t seem to care too much about setting up the vampire mythology in this movie. Now, these days vampires are so common that if you’re going to have vampires in your movies you have to put some elbow grease into making them distinct. Yeah, Priest takes the low-road with this challenge, making the vampires, basically atavistic monsters. Shit, the Aliens in Aliens were more anthropomorphized than the vampires in this movie. This begs, the question: why vampires? Why not just use…I dunno, mutants or something.
I’m tempted to respond that the religious angle would then have no reason for being (since they could use ordinary commandos to kill mutants), only the same thing is true in Priest. Aside from crucifixes that turn into ninja shuriken, the battle between priests and vampires are wholly secular—no holy water, no crosses, no nada. They don’t even pray that often. They’re more like generic, loner-shit-kickers who are mysteriously partial to black and bad fake facial tattoos.
Yeah, the movie throws us a couple nuggets of exposition, but they don’t clear up much: priests are born with their powers, which are then honed by the church, and they carry The Hand of God. That help you out with anything? Yeah, me either.
(Truly, gimmie a call, Maggie, day or night…or drop me an e-mail. We’ll grab a drink and dinner, have a few laughs, feed Chris Brown to some giant monitor lizards…it’ll be fun.)
Hell, the film I so lazy that they can’t even pretend to generate some suspense for the proceedings. The movie opens with an assault on a huge vampire hive, during which one of Priest’s co-priests (Karl Urban) is dragged away by vampires. Hmm…think that’ll be important later? Nope. No, I think a (for this movie) heavy-hitter like Urban will get two minutes of screen time in the front of the movie and then we’ll never see him again. Uh-huh, but no; Urban is established as the arch-villain within about ten minutes. Hey thanks, movie. I don’t like using my brain that much, either.
(You look very skinny, Maggie. Are you hungry? Would you like a pork chop? I will feed you pork chops.)
The fight scenes alternate between stock and ridiculous, with the needle dipping mostly toward the later. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and speculate that director Scott Charles Stewart (the guy who brought us *shudder* Legion) genuinely believes that physics works the way it does in wire-fu movies. Hence, we have multiple scenes of Priest leaping in the air, flipping, almost stopping, etc. As a matter of fact, the Priests seem to be able to leap superhuman heights, surmounting cliffs the way penguins launch themselves out of water onto icebergs. In the movie’s biggest howler, Priest leaps into the air, while Priestess throws two stones after him, which Priest then uses as steps in mid-air to climb higher! Holy fuck, I was an English major and even I know that physics doesn’t work that way!
(I don’t want to get personal here, Maggie, but you dated Brett Fucking Ratner…I mean, how can I NOT be an improvement over that douchebag?)
As a latter-day Man-With-No-Name, Bettany is quite good, even if his character isn’t given any humanity to connect with the audience. About the closest thing we get is the simmering repressed sexual tension between he and Priestess, which, to its credit is as scorching as anything between Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger. As a matter of fact, the most suspenseful part of the movie is when Priest and Priestess nearly share a kiss (I was on the edge of my seat, mentally shouting “Do it! She wants you to! Screw your tortured past! It’s Maggie Q, for Chrissakes! Idiot.”)
As a frontier sheriff, Giganet is pretty much a joke. He’s interesting mostly for the way the part in his hair manages to stay perfect no matter what he’s just gone through. It’s like he’s got the head of a Ken doll or something. And Maggie Q is awesome, just like she is in everything. I’ll hear no disparaging of Maggie.
(Seriously, Maggie, just click the e-mail link…you could do a lot worse…I have many Omega watches…)
So that’s Priest. Yeah, it’s a renter. Also the 3D was post-production and really adds nothing to the film. Man, all that writing and I couldn’t even work in a molestation joke. This movie really is a drag (but not you, Maggie…)
