Review

Review Date: 15-May-11
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Priest (2011)

From a detached perspective, I can see why storytellers might want to use an organized religion like Christianity as a backdrop. Without having to develop character, history, or theme, one can simply introduce a protagonist as a priest and tap a wellspring of ideas including guilt, salvation, arcane knowledge, institutional tyranny, and stifled sexuality. If the storyteller is a filmmaker he or she can also pull in rituals, gadgets, and clothing that look cool on screen. What's not to love about such a handy device?

As the movie Priest shows, the problem with using religion to flavor non-religious stories — in this case a tale of a vampire-hunter — is that it invites a lethal seriousness. Most action and horror movies that exploit religion imitate its solemnity, as if they respected God over profit or were truly dealing with the deep stuff of life. But of course they don't, and they're not. Even though it's a cliché-ridden B-movie, Priest might have been diverting if it weren't so grandiose. Every character broods from beginning to end, absorbed in his own importance and apparently incapable of cracking a joke or a smile. Paul Bettany (so handsome, so talented, so stuck in dorky roles) glowers as a retired warrior whose life was defined by the church that rules the land. He and his fellow priests were once instrumental in defeating humans' natural enemy, vampires, but after winning the war they became anathema. When his brother's family is attacked and his niece abducted by the old foe, he defies the church's orders and heads out to do battle again.

I'm not suggesting that his family's destruction is reason for Bettany to smile, but one could forgive him for giggling at what he finds when he leaves his dank city. Not content with the religion riff, the movie throws in the Old West, a mix which might have worked better in the comic series on which Priest is based. (Or not.) Settlers on the land wrested from the vampires inhabit quaint towns overseen by sheriffs, one of whom (Cam Gigandet) is the lost niece's beau. In the familiar oater role of Boy Learning to Be a Man (his name is Hicks, for Christ's sake), he joins the priest to track down the sunlight-hating rustlers whose leader, a priest-vampire hybrid, is played by Karl Urban. (Incidentally, when did toothy, lumpy-foreheaded creatures become all the rage? The vampires here resemble the Kraken from Clash of the Titans and the Frost Giants' monster in Thor.) Rounding out the posse is a female priest (Maggie Q) who is nearly as superfluous as the boy but can be credited for softening the movie's absurd grimness. Her crush on Bettany and avowed virginity form one of the shameless hooks for a sequel, since she is much too beautiful to go unloved … and he could sure as hell use some nooky.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.