Priest (2011)

Last year, Paul Bettany starred in another genre flick called Legion. Much like Priest, Legion was delayed and sat on the shelf for quite some time before the studio finally decided to dump it in theaters. Usually, when movies sit or keep finding their release dates pushed and pushed, it's a bad sign. Most who saw Legion were not happy with the end result. Priest hasn't fared much better.

We liked Legion a lot more than we liked Priest. Did we mention that both movies were directed by the same guy? Hmm.

Priest is the story of... priests. These priests though are mankind's protectors against vampires that roam the barren landscape of the world, and are the only ones that can kill the foul creatures. Eventually they rid the world of the vampires (or so they think), the church pretty much shuns them, and turns them into homeless losers. Of course, the vampires reappear, and the only ones that can stop the impending doom of the undead is Paul Bettany...

Legion wasn't a great movie by any means, but we found it to be a fun popcorn type of flick; for some reason, we were able to ignore its flaws and just enjoy the gun play and melodramatic one liners that the angels threw around so callously.

Priest, though the same kind of popcorn mindlessness, just didn't do much for us. The concept of what the priest's were was kinda neat, but the wire-fu jumps and unearthly karate/throwing star usage was a little lame. Bettany was enjoyable, but kinda just hit one note throughout, and oddly enough it was the same note that he hit in Legion. Karl Urban, who is definitely someone we usually love, had a crap character to work with, and we weren't buying the old west gunslinger thing he had going on.

Don't even get us started on Cam Gigandet.

C- It was alright as a mindless action flick, but it's just nothing we'd recommend or see again. The CGI vampires were meh, the 3D conversion was fairly pointless, and though some of the action was fun (some, we say), most everything else about the movie was fairly underwhelming. It probably won't upset you to sit through this one, some of you may even have a good time with it, just don't be surprised if you end up feeling blah about the whole thing.