“Let’s remake John Ford’s The Searchers as a 3-D post-apocalyptic vampire/martial arts action-horror movie!”  If that was your “high concept” idea, I hate to be the one to break the news, but…it’s been done.  Priest is allegedly based on a series of graphic novels, so I can’t say who originally had the “inspiration” for the plot of this particular film, but if you’re familiar with the 1956 John Wayne vehicle—considered a classic by such cineastes as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg—then you’ll easily see the parallels:  

The Priest = Ethan Edwards (an older man, a loner, who has adopted his brother’s family as his own, and is in love with his brother’s wife; after his brother and sister-in-law are killed in an attack and his niece abducted, the hero sets off to find her);

Hicks = Martin (young, brash, determined to save the kidnaped girl; he forms an uneasy alliance with the protagonist);

Lucy = Debbie (abducted by Indians/vampires);

Black Hat = Scar (the instigator of the raid and one who kidnaps Lucy/Debbie);

(At the risk of being facetious, I suppose we could say the Priestess plays the Ward Bond or Hank Worden role!)  

The Priest is, like Ethan, an expert Indian/vampire killer who has to some extent outlived his usefulness, since the threat he was trained to combat has been—so it seems—defeated.  The film draws a fairly clear analogy between vampires and Native Americans: both are placed on “reservations,” but occasionally break out to threaten the frontier (= the “Wasteland” in Priest).  Indeed, both films are largely set in lightly-populated desert areas, a wilderness to be tamed, in contrast to “back East” in The Searchers and the dreary walled city of Priest. 

 There are a few twists and differences, to be sure: the Priest is Lucy’s father rather than her uncle (although she was raised as his niece and doesn’t know of their relationship), and Hicks is Lucy’s boyfriend rather than her older cousin.  But the basic premise of the two movies is the same, as is the strained relationship between Priest/Hicks (Ethan/Martin): if Lucy has been infected by vampirism, Priest vows to kill her, while Hicks states his intention to protect her (cf., Ethan, fearing Debbie has been indoctrinated into Native American ways, plans to kill her rather than have her become a “squaw,” while Martin objects).  

To be honest, Priest does a fairly good job adapting the plot of The Searchers to a post-apocalyptic milieu.  Aside from the whole “vampire” thing, the major difference in the two films is Priest’s view of a world ruled by a theocracy—and specifically, the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church isn’t named, of course (it’s just “the Church”), and some might argue for a more vague interpretation of the film’s secondary menace, but I’m not aware of too many other Christian denominations which have “monsignors,” use rosary beads, and require a vow of celibacy for its priests.  The Church is certainly painted in negative terms, albeit not necessarily religiously negative terms.  That is, aside from the oft-repeated “to go against the Church is to go against God” statement, the Church functions much as any other (cinematic) totalitarian government does, and there are the standard moral conflicts between the hero and the entrenched bureaucracy, which seeks to perpetuate its own existence even if this means covering up a looming threat.

But, despite the abundance of crosses on display (including one tattooed on the face of the protagonist), it is not Christianity (or even a more generic God) that defeats the vampire menace, but rather blades, bullets, bombs, and sunlight.  The vampires of Priest more closely resemble hellish pit bulls than the suave, romantic humanoid vampires of a thousand previous movies: they have no eyes, plenty of sharp teeth, live in the dark, don’t turn into bats, apparently aren’t that intelligent and don’t talk (basically, whenever they’re shown in the film, they’re running around full tilt trying to kill things).  They have “familiars,” Nosferatu-like humans who serve as their guardians and acolytes, and then there’s Black Hat (movie short-hand for villains, his very name is another linkage to filmic Westerns), a human-vampire hybrid and the mastermind behind the Vampire Rebellion.

Priest begins with an animated prologue telling of a long war between vampires and humans; the humans finally prevailed thanks to the warrior class of Priests who were trained to destroy the inhuman monsters.  The remaining vampires were banished to reservations and the Church disbanded the Priest class, fearing their power.  The protagonist of Priest is visited by Hicks, the sheriff of a small town in the Wasteland, who says the Priest’s brother’s family was attacked by vampires and his niece Lucy abducted.  The Priest asks permission of the ruling Church council to resume his vampire-killing ways, but the Church insists there is no vampire threat, that the attack was probably the result of marauding bandits.  The Priest defies their orders and sets off with Hicks to save his niece.  Four Priests (well, 3 Priests and a Priestess) are dispatched to capture the defiant Priest.  As it develops, Black Hat has a plan to rekindle the war between vampires and humans, and it might just succeed…dun dun DUN.

Coming in, I was aware Priest was in 3-D and I knew the vampires were CGI creations, and neither of these were (for me) positive attributes.  However, I’ll be magnanimous enough to say that—although some of the film is too damn dark and hard to see (curse you, 3-D glasses!)—a few of the 3-D effects were actually entertaining.  On the other hand, there was no particular aesthetic or artistic reason for Priest to have been made (or post-converted, to be precise) to 3-D.  It was a business decision, plain and simple.  Director Scott Stewart and star Paul Bettany’s previous project together was the renegade-angel film Legion, and while that wasn’t a horrid flop, it probably didn’t make many people excitedly await another Stewart-Bettany movie (even though Priest is much better than Legion).  The cast of Priest is competent but not exactly star-studded, so there wasn’t much box-office help there, and while vampires have been an insanely hot film topic for over a decade, I don’t think there will be a lot of audience cross-over between Twilight and Priest. I mean, there are sparkly vampires, and there are CGI skinned-monster-dog vampires, and never the twain shall meet.

Aside from the dubious charms of 3-D and CGI, Priest is adequately produced, with some cool motorcycles and a bad-ass train on display in the action sequences.  As noted above, the performers do their jobs satisfactorily: Paul Bettany (who looks like he could be the son of Ed Harris) is appropriately serious, stern, competent and deadly; Maggie Q, attractive and stalwart as the Priestess; Christopher Plummer, sinister as the stubborn Church bureaucrat; Karl Urban seems to be playing Black Hat as “a villainous Clint Eastwood with fangs,” and that’s a good thing, trust me.  It’s also nice to see a favourite of mine from the ’80s, Mädchen Amick, in a small role: I didn’t recognise her at first, but I said to myself “that is an attractive woman,” and lo and behold, it was my Mädchen!  The pacing of Priest is fine—the film clocks in at under 90 minutes and a fair amount of that is taken up with the credits and the animated prologue, so there isn’t a lot of time for dawdling.  Set up the premise and characters, and let the good times roll!

I don’t want to overrate Priest, because it has its flaws.  Despite the explanatory prologue, it’s difficult to understand why the vampires represent such a threat to civilisation, given that they’re depicted as little more than ravening beasts (who, moreover, fear sunlight and have no eyes).  Black Hat is the brains behind the operation and he is (as he points out) the first vampire-human hybrid (and the only one, so far).  

       Furthermore, Priest, like some other contemporary films, has a tendency to impart superior martial arts skills to the protagonists (and villains as well), without bothering to cast actual martial arts experts in these roles.  This means the fight scenes are 50% quick cuts and 50% optical effects, which reduces their realism (and hence their impact) considerably.  Sure, “classic” martial arts films utilised cinematic trickery, but this was to enhance the action, not to give the impression that the performers had abilities they did not possess.  Perhaps I’m slightly less forgiving when it comes to martial arts than I am with regard to “standard” movie fisticuffs, which have always been achieved by employing stunt men and/or judicious camera angles and editing.  And the action in Priest is good enough, it’s exciting, it’s just not…great.  

I’m not sure how highly I’d have rated Priest if I’d had to pay to see it (especially with a 3-D surcharge, argh!).  Priest is an adequate action-fantasy film, but it remains to be seen whether audiences who have to purchase tickets will feel it’s a satisfactory investment of their entertainment dollars. 

PS: lest it be said that I only watch action and horror films, be it hereby noted for the record that I intend to see Water for Elephants soon, chick flick or not.  Heaven help us.