Jason KingPRIEST: A Review by Mitch
August 25th 2011 09:37
:
Will be avoiding this one fo shizzle
Category: Reviews
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been 27 days since my last confession and I feel that I need you now more than ever. No words did I hear regarding this movie prior to having it lay upon my eyes. No early scriptures did I read nor did I lay witness to any distractions of a trailered nature.
Father, I prayed that if I denied myself these wicked temptations, the true light of this film would shine through and speaketh for itself... and father, although thy film did speaketh for itself, the words, the visions and the tale had not the strength nor the originality to warrant standing before my reclined body as I drank humbly of your fermented nectar and consumed of your flattened tomato bread, basted in 3 different types of cheese."
I stand before you to spread the gospel, "Priest 3D" just ain't worth spillin' your Jesus juice over.
Directed by Scott Charles Stewart ("Legion") and starring fellow "Legion" alum Paul Bettany as the titular Priest, Cam "Gigabyte" Gigandet, Maggie Q and Karl Urban, "Priest 3D" combines the futuristic atmosphere of a darker "Fifth Element", the choreography and cinematography of "Blade", recognisable characteristics of "Star Wars" and the overall tone of "Daybreakers" meets "Resident Evil" into an 87 minute $60million supernatural action flick that you will unfortunately forget about a week after leaving the cinema.
For as long as there have been humans, there have been vampires and for as long as they've co-existed, they have been at war with each other. It was undeniable that the creatures were just too fast, agile, vicious and strong for the warriors to overthrow so the few remaining mega cities concealed themselves behind impenetrable walls and sought solitude in God thus letting one powerful church rule the remaining societies. Upon introducing fierce super-warriors known as Priests who are said to have been endowed with the power of the hand of God, the last vampire war was fought and was thought to have finally put an end to the threat of the vampire menace.
With the church having convinced society that God had saved them all, the people remained forever in debt to the lord which resulted in the church having complete and total control over how the new world was run. Electronic confessionals line city streets, hourly prayers of thanks to the higher power, using crucifixes to unlock your apartment doors etc...
However, when Sheriff Hicks (Gigandet) from Augustine, a small town outside the walled cities, approaches Priest (Bettany) to inform him that vampires had abducted his niece, Priest goes against the clergy (headed by Christopher Plummer and Alan Dale), against the church and against God to travel beyond the walls and rescue his niece alongside Hicks.
"Priest 3D" is one of those post-apocalyptic "Book of Eli" or "Pitch Black" looking films in that every scene is bleached of any colour and therefore any depth of field so in that, the 3D conversion gets cancelled out and you find yourself watching a 2D movie wearing those stupid 3D glasses.
There is not a lot for the actors to work with here in terms of character motives and dialogue. Forget character development, not that you'd expect that in a movie like this but it's good to at least be forewarned that it's not even a possibility. Paul Bettany's Priest is mediocre but he played the part of an emotionally scarred warrior who feels ignored by his God to a point where you just don't care and it kind of seems like neither does he. The line between scarred silent and not giving a shit gets heavily blurred here, even when there's an attempt at a twist or two, Priest doesn't bat an eye. It's kind of like the characters need to say it again to reaffirm that he did indeed pick up on the twist. Cam Gigandet's cocky Sheriff Hicks is supposed to have the best aim in all the land, what with being able to split a bullet in half with a throwing knife but aside from that fleeting 10 second moment, never is there a point where he gets to show off his supposed skills. He shoots a gun 2 maybe 3 times and spends the rest of the time spraying bullets everywhere or having random hormonal issues with his mood. Maggie Q plays a Priestess, simply put, her character is Maggie Q playing a Priestess. Honestly, she has the least to do yet still manages to pull off a kind of cool yet still pretty dumb fight scene. And Karl Urban... God bless him, he really looked like he was having fun in his role. I won't tell you what role it is because then I'd have to write *SPOILER ALERT* but it was as if he read the script, saw the paycheque and thought somewhere in between those two things, I get to ham it up and deliver a bunch of lines that writers don't even use anymore because they're so cliche... what the hell, where's the dotted line?
One thing I really, truly didn't like was the design of the vampires and in a movie that's half about the vampires, that's pretty crucial. I'm a vampire purist. I don't agree with vampires that sparkle (Cullen!!) nor do I agree with vampires that are rabid dog-like creatures that have no eyes, 4 fangs and look like giant slimy maggots. That pissed me off but then again, I wasn't expecting anything overly groundbreaking from this so I just let it slide and tried to further immerse myself in the movie.
The cinematography overall is sleek and very stylised in that super-slow motion kind of way and in some scenes was quite visually impressive, incorporating some great computer generated panoramic shots yet in the very next scene, it would seem clumsy and mismatched with equally clumsy fight choreography. The director and choreographers took the easy way out by having very aerodynamic fight sequences. One punch and you're in the air for 5 minutes before you land, the retaliating punch with the same effect and so on. There was no outstanding stunt or fight choreography, just your basic "moderate action violence" with a few moments of "strong horror violence" thrown in here and there for that crowd who thinks that if a movie is MA15 it must be better than if it were just rated M. Yes, a crowd like that actually does exist.
You can't help but be a little disappointed with a movie that's storyline is wafer-thin and peppered with lazy fight scenes and cliche dialogue but then again, at the end of the day, you won't necessarily "hate" this movie, no... you just won't care that you ever watched it once it's over. I really thought if I went into this flick as a blank canvas, I'd have more chance of being impressed. My expectations were neutral having not seen any promo material beforehand and to be honest, they only travelled south by the time I left the cinema so don't hurt yourself scrambling desperately to be front and centre on opening night. This one's not a matter of first in, best blessed so maybe just sit back and wait for it to resurrect itself on DVD.
"Priest 3D" - 3/10... 2 points for the movie and 1 to keep me out of hell for another day.
Father, I prayed that if I denied myself these wicked temptations, the true light of this film would shine through and speaketh for itself... and father, although thy film did speaketh for itself, the words, the visions and the tale had not the strength nor the originality to warrant standing before my reclined body as I drank humbly of your fermented nectar and consumed of your flattened tomato bread, basted in 3 different types of cheese."
I stand before you to spread the gospel, "Priest 3D" just ain't worth spillin' your Jesus juice over.
Directed by Scott Charles Stewart ("Legion") and starring fellow "Legion" alum Paul Bettany as the titular Priest, Cam "Gigabyte" Gigandet, Maggie Q and Karl Urban, "Priest 3D" combines the futuristic atmosphere of a darker "Fifth Element", the choreography and cinematography of "Blade", recognisable characteristics of "Star Wars" and the overall tone of "Daybreakers" meets "Resident Evil" into an 87 minute $60million supernatural action flick that you will unfortunately forget about a week after leaving the cinema.
For as long as there have been humans, there have been vampires and for as long as they've co-existed, they have been at war with each other. It was undeniable that the creatures were just too fast, agile, vicious and strong for the warriors to overthrow so the few remaining mega cities concealed themselves behind impenetrable walls and sought solitude in God thus letting one powerful church rule the remaining societies. Upon introducing fierce super-warriors known as Priests who are said to have been endowed with the power of the hand of God, the last vampire war was fought and was thought to have finally put an end to the threat of the vampire menace.
With the church having convinced society that God had saved them all, the people remained forever in debt to the lord which resulted in the church having complete and total control over how the new world was run. Electronic confessionals line city streets, hourly prayers of thanks to the higher power, using crucifixes to unlock your apartment doors etc...
However, when Sheriff Hicks (Gigandet) from Augustine, a small town outside the walled cities, approaches Priest (Bettany) to inform him that vampires had abducted his niece, Priest goes against the clergy (headed by Christopher Plummer and Alan Dale), against the church and against God to travel beyond the walls and rescue his niece alongside Hicks.
"Priest 3D" is one of those post-apocalyptic "Book of Eli" or "Pitch Black" looking films in that every scene is bleached of any colour and therefore any depth of field so in that, the 3D conversion gets cancelled out and you find yourself watching a 2D movie wearing those stupid 3D glasses.
There is not a lot for the actors to work with here in terms of character motives and dialogue. Forget character development, not that you'd expect that in a movie like this but it's good to at least be forewarned that it's not even a possibility. Paul Bettany's Priest is mediocre but he played the part of an emotionally scarred warrior who feels ignored by his God to a point where you just don't care and it kind of seems like neither does he. The line between scarred silent and not giving a shit gets heavily blurred here, even when there's an attempt at a twist or two, Priest doesn't bat an eye. It's kind of like the characters need to say it again to reaffirm that he did indeed pick up on the twist. Cam Gigandet's cocky Sheriff Hicks is supposed to have the best aim in all the land, what with being able to split a bullet in half with a throwing knife but aside from that fleeting 10 second moment, never is there a point where he gets to show off his supposed skills. He shoots a gun 2 maybe 3 times and spends the rest of the time spraying bullets everywhere or having random hormonal issues with his mood. Maggie Q plays a Priestess, simply put, her character is Maggie Q playing a Priestess. Honestly, she has the least to do yet still manages to pull off a kind of cool yet still pretty dumb fight scene. And Karl Urban... God bless him, he really looked like he was having fun in his role. I won't tell you what role it is because then I'd have to write *SPOILER ALERT* but it was as if he read the script, saw the paycheque and thought somewhere in between those two things, I get to ham it up and deliver a bunch of lines that writers don't even use anymore because they're so cliche... what the hell, where's the dotted line?
One thing I really, truly didn't like was the design of the vampires and in a movie that's half about the vampires, that's pretty crucial. I'm a vampire purist. I don't agree with vampires that sparkle (Cullen!!) nor do I agree with vampires that are rabid dog-like creatures that have no eyes, 4 fangs and look like giant slimy maggots. That pissed me off but then again, I wasn't expecting anything overly groundbreaking from this so I just let it slide and tried to further immerse myself in the movie.
The cinematography overall is sleek and very stylised in that super-slow motion kind of way and in some scenes was quite visually impressive, incorporating some great computer generated panoramic shots yet in the very next scene, it would seem clumsy and mismatched with equally clumsy fight choreography. The director and choreographers took the easy way out by having very aerodynamic fight sequences. One punch and you're in the air for 5 minutes before you land, the retaliating punch with the same effect and so on. There was no outstanding stunt or fight choreography, just your basic "moderate action violence" with a few moments of "strong horror violence" thrown in here and there for that crowd who thinks that if a movie is MA15 it must be better than if it were just rated M. Yes, a crowd like that actually does exist.
You can't help but be a little disappointed with a movie that's storyline is wafer-thin and peppered with lazy fight scenes and cliche dialogue but then again, at the end of the day, you won't necessarily "hate" this movie, no... you just won't care that you ever watched it once it's over. I really thought if I went into this flick as a blank canvas, I'd have more chance of being impressed. My expectations were neutral having not seen any promo material beforehand and to be honest, they only travelled south by the time I left the cinema so don't hurt yourself scrambling desperately to be front and centre on opening night. This one's not a matter of first in, best blessed so maybe just sit back and wait for it to resurrect itself on DVD.
"Priest 3D" - 3/10... 2 points for the movie and 1 to keep me out of hell for another day.
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