'Priest' is beyond absolution

Film: Priest 3D (A)
Cast: Paul Bettany, Karl Urban, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q, Lily Collins, Christopher Plummer, Brad Dourif
Director: Scott Charles Stewart
Rating: *1/2

In the theocracy that exists in an alternative reality where mankind has been engaged in an ancient battle against a vampiric race, the totalitarian Church isolates humanity (well, the humanity that matters) in a cyberpunk dystopia after all the bloodsuckers are presumably exterminated. A priest (Bettany), a member of the once-revered Jedi-like monastic corps that played a pivotal role in the eradication of the vampire menace, is relegated to a life of obscurity and looked upon with mistrust by this world he helped create.

After a horde of vampires led by the mysterious Black Hat (Urban) makes off with the priest's niece (Collins), the priest, against the sanction of the Church, ventures into the sprawling wastelands, something of a post-apocalyptic Sodom, outside the city’s limits. This is where he meets sheriff Hicks and a former colleague, the priestess (Q), who aid him in his quest.

A medley of several genres and, more importantly, several films, Priest’s inability to concoct original elements that aren’t preposterous, apart from the heavy borrowing, is testament to its inherent lack of creativity.  Predictability persists from the creature design, action sequences, and dialogues down to the anti-clerical tone. The CGi, likewise, is tiresome, and there is no noteworthy sequence rendered in 3D that warrants a mention. The talent of Urban as Black Hat, a villain whose origin is quite arbitrary, is wasted on such an unremarkable fiend.

As the priest, a cross between The Man With No Name and a stoic Jedi Knight, Bettany needn’t (and doesn’t) channel his inner Olivier. Plummer, Dourif, and Q are among the better performers. Gigandet, in essaying a stock character (like every other in the film), is annoying as the loose cannon lawman.  

Priest, for being formulaic and un-inventive while attempting to springboard off the ideas presented by half-a-dozen better-thought-out films, ought to be skipped.