When his niece is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out on an obsessive quest to find her before they turn her into one of them. He is joined on his crusade by his niece's boyfriend, a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff and a former warrior priestess, who possesses otherworldly fighting skills.
Forget what you know about vampires, even though most of what we've learned is still true. For "Priest" (Paul Bettany, vampires of the future are savages with no eyes or clothing, just a primal need to ravage anything in their path.
The priest is no ordinary man/woman of God, but a skilled soldier and expert at killing vampires. The problem lies in the fact that, somewhere, there is a queen causing a great deal of havoc for humans worldwide. The war was won by humans, however they have become reclusive behind what seems like prison walls to protect them from any rogue vampire threat.
There is an attempt by the vampires to retake their
place in the order of life. When one of the priests is captured, he is converted
into the kind of vampire we're more familiar with. However, this vampire (Karl
Urban) is not affected by sunlight and still maintains all the skill of a
priest, but has the strength of a vampire.
Priest is joined by a priestess (Maggie Q) who tries to stop an impending
vampire attack on one of the last remaining human cities. The stage this battle
occurs on is reminiscent of Mad Max and something right out of the Old West. The
fight sequences are done well, and Maggie Q definitely has a future in action
films if she chooses her roles well.
I did expect a little more from the final battle
between good and evil, but this is an adaptation from a graphic novel, so I can
only guess there is more to the story than what we are left with.
2.5 out of 4 buckets
